Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday,
Speaker 1: time for a vault episode. And this is gonna be
Speaker 1: one that you and Christian did way back in right, yeah, April.
Speaker 1: This was the first episode of Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind that I recorded with Christian. Uh, and it's on
Speaker 1: Satanic panic. I figured that's appropriate. We're getting into the
Speaker 1: holidays here. Uh, let's start thinking about moral panics and
Speaker 1: uh and the War on Christmas. And they have the
Speaker 1: War on Christmas. It's a perfect time to consider Satanic
Speaker 1: panic and its legacy in human culture. The Satanic panic
Speaker 1: is a fascinating subject. This is one of the ones
Speaker 1: you did with Christian that I was kind of jealous
Speaker 1: I didn't get to do because it's so interesting. It's
Speaker 1: so I mean, there's a lot of really horrifying elements
Speaker 1: to it, but it's also just so rich with with
Speaker 1: interesting psychological tidbits. Why do these things happen? So I'm
Speaker 1: glad you guys got to cover it. And Uh, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm excited for you. Listens right now, who are about
Speaker 1: to get to hear it? All Right, let's let's enter
Speaker 1: the vault. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb. Hey, I'm
Speaker 1: Christian Seger guest toasting Yes Christians. Feeling in for Julie.
Speaker 1: She's on a vacation this week, and uh, we took
Speaker 1: this opportunity to dive into a couple of darker topics.
Speaker 1: We talked about Gromore's and in this episode we're talking
Speaker 1: about a little thing called Satanic panic. And uh, I
Speaker 1: feel I feel like depending on where our listeners are
Speaker 1: in terms of of age and the geographical location, they're
Speaker 1: gonna have varying levels of of intersection with this topic.
Speaker 1: Based on our previous conversations, I believe we both have
Speaker 1: varying degrees of contact with the Satanic panic of the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, especially a time in which there was a
Speaker 1: lot of moral panic and outrage over the perceived threat
Speaker 1: of secret Satanic cults, which sounds crazy. It may sound
Speaker 1: crazy to you, but this was a very real atmosphere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the peak of Satanic panic was between nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five and around nineteen two. Although I think you
Speaker 1: can probably trace it even a little further back into
Speaker 1: the late seventies probably, and that for me, I'm thirty seven,
Speaker 1: I'm about to be thirty eight, So I grew up
Speaker 1: that was the period of time when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, well we're the same age, so okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so so yeah, Like I was in elementary school while
Speaker 1: this was going on, and it was a it was
Speaker 1: something that my parents weren't necessarily as afraid of it,
Speaker 1: but I had friends whose parents were afraid of it. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then um, we talked about this off air. But
Speaker 1: I had an experience where for a year I had
Speaker 1: to go to a private religious school and there was
Speaker 1: a lot of satanic panic within this school, and in
Speaker 1: particular about demon possession and being the need to be
Speaker 1: exercised or even Uh. We had a classmate who was
Speaker 1: ostracized by our teacher because he was purported to be
Speaker 1: possessed by the devil. Oh wow, I mean I I
Speaker 1: definitely grew up as well in a in a family
Speaker 1: environment where a lot of there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: of of emphasis on satanic panic. It wasn't really a
Speaker 1: thing in my family. But would go to church and
Speaker 1: you would you would hear about the thread or read
Speaker 1: about the Thread, and various youth of publications that were
Speaker 1: that were aimed at us about the dangers of say,
Speaker 1: horror literature, about of course heavy metal music and um
Speaker 1: and then there were I remember also having having friends
Speaker 1: who were really heavily involved in our youth group and
Speaker 1: being at a youth coffee house and being asked to
Speaker 1: come into a back room to sit in on an exorcism. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it was this whole atmosphere, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's especially attractive to deteens in which these these demonic
Speaker 1: forces were real. There was this there's this war between
Speaker 1: the forces of good and the forces of evil and
Speaker 1: your soul, your mind is kind of the battle ground. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's satanic panic are also you know what what
Speaker 1: the claimed practices are generally termed under the phrase satanic
Speaker 1: ritual abuse UM or s r A. For sure, we
Speaker 1: might say that throughout the podcast. But there there was
Speaker 1: this mm hmmm uh sort of chaos about the general
Speaker 1: chaos about growing up as a human being in the world,
Speaker 1: especially as an adolescent, when you're trying to figure things out,
Speaker 1: you're trying to make sense of the world, and then
Speaker 1: along comes this narrative that's basically like you are at
Speaker 1: the center of this and either um, these underground mysterious
Speaker 1: heavy metal cults can transform your soul into into darkness
Speaker 1: or you can be guarded and uh, you know, come
Speaker 1: out on the side of righteousness. Uh. And it you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds silly, it sounds very um black and white. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, having lived through it, like it's especially like
Speaker 1: going back and then doing the research on this and
Speaker 1: being like, oh, yeah, I remember when that happened. And
Speaker 1: but but but my little ten year old brain, you know,
Speaker 1: seven couldn't couldn't exactly make sense of it, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, It's just some fascinating stuff. But largely Satanic
Speaker 1: panic was a combination of m that there was this
Speaker 1: idea of repressed memories being brought back, and a lot
Speaker 1: of these repressed memories were supposedly of interactions or torture
Speaker 1: within satanic underground organizations, their secret organizations that are worshiping
Speaker 1: the devil and it's part of their rights. They are
Speaker 1: abuse using, often sexually, very young children, and that that
Speaker 1: is sort of where the moral panic comes in. That
Speaker 1: gets everyone involved, at least in the children. Yeah, the Again,
Speaker 1: the this is kind of ironic, as I wrote a
Speaker 1: comic book called this but think of the children, as
Speaker 1: you always they always comes back to these moral panics,
Speaker 1: is that something is going wrong with the children. And
Speaker 1: in this particular case, it was actually true in a
Speaker 1: lot of these incidents that there were children that were
Speaker 1: being physically abused and sexually abused. But there has not
Speaker 1: been by and large evidence that there ever was an
Speaker 1: underground Satanic network or cult that was operating and performing
Speaker 1: these these acts. Yeah, I mean, certainly there are there
Speaker 1: their individuals out there that self identify as Satanist, but
Speaker 1: Satanist of the type that are vilified in Satanic panic
Speaker 1: and in this movement. They never existed, and that's something
Speaker 1: that's key to deep in mind. But that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that's so fascinating about it is that there
Speaker 1: is no actual religious group that this is based around.
Speaker 1: It's all based on on hearsay and myth making and fear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's um that myth making largely came out of
Speaker 1: media sensationalism in the eighties too, And in particular, there
Speaker 1: was one hallmark that we both watched and kind of
Speaker 1: kind of went back to which was Horaldo Rivera and
Speaker 1: had uh an expose that was called awhere is it
Speaker 1: the title of this thing? Uh Devil Worship exposing Satan's
Speaker 1: underground And it was this two hour talk show that
Speaker 1: he did, interspersed with various you know, on the scene
Speaker 1: reports of Heraldo talking to victims of Satanic ritual abuse.
Speaker 1: But then in the studio he was talking to Ozzy
Speaker 1: Osbourne via satellite, and then he had um a Catholic
Speaker 1: priest on stage, and he had members of the Church
Speaker 1: of St Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, not to be
Speaker 1: confused with the Satanic Panic Satanist cults that we are
Speaker 1: supposedly operating. Uh FBI agents were in the room or
Speaker 1: on stage who were supposedly, you know, tracking down these
Speaker 1: underground cults. It rewatching it. I expected to be very skeptical,
Speaker 1: and instead I found myself saying, Okay, I know about this.
Speaker 1: I know that this is largely a a moral hysteria
Speaker 1: that happened thirty years ago, but it's compelling. I could
Speaker 1: see why people fell for it at the time, and
Speaker 1: we're you know, deeply concerned. Um so yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: really interesting. But so ultimately Satanic ritual abuse falls under
Speaker 1: the following claimed practices that were being acted out by
Speaker 1: these groups. Supposedly, Uh, there was human sacrifice, sexual depravity
Speaker 1: make of that what you will, or perversion, uh, and
Speaker 1: that that these were actual statistics the law enforcement officials
Speaker 1: were throwing out fifty thousand or more people were dying
Speaker 1: a year in the United States of America from Satanic
Speaker 1: ritual abuse supposedly, and uh, during their torture or murders,
Speaker 1: they were forced to consume urine or feces or blood
Speaker 1: and there's just you know, basically anything that you can
Speaker 1: think of as being like depraved acts were placed upon
Speaker 1: uh at the at the foot of these mythological groups.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if mythological is the right
Speaker 1: term to use here, but they were fantastic, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting when you start looking back, um through history,
Speaker 1: like how we got to this point, because I kind
Speaker 1: of think even in terms of of a bonfire, right, um,
Speaker 1: in which you have all this kindling that's built up
Speaker 1: and it gets it's to the point where you all
Speaker 1: you need is that additional spark to to really just
Speaker 1: send it ablaze, and the spark being of course, threats threat,
Speaker 1: a threat to the children, or you know, a threat
Speaker 1: to you know, a real personal threat to yourself. Now,
Speaker 1: if you go back far enough in time, you'll find
Speaker 1: plenty of accounts of for instance, blood libel fourteen seventy
Speaker 1: five assignment of Prent blood Libel, in which an entire
Speaker 1: Jewish community was tortured over the death of a two
Speaker 1: year old Christian boy. There, you know, the claim being
Speaker 1: that there was a ritual murder of the child. Um.
Speaker 1: You can you can find parallels and uh in which
Speaker 1: hunts and which person persecutions throughout time. But when you're
Speaker 1: looking particularly at the twentieth century, UM, there's a historian
Speaker 1: by the name of Philip Jenkins who wrote a fabulous
Speaker 1: piece called Satanism and Ritual Abuse. And this is collected
Speaker 1: in uh the Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. I
Speaker 1: believe it's one of the last chapters in the book. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting piece, and I think it is one
Speaker 1: of the best things that I've read that sort of
Speaker 1: encapsulates the whole hysteria of the time and sort of
Speaker 1: points to there being a similar theme eames within the
Speaker 1: Satanic panic hysteria to the rhetorical themes that we're going
Speaker 1: on with fringe religions throughout history too. You know, there's
Speaker 1: an empty emphasis on protecting endangered children, as we already
Speaker 1: talked about, but there's also this idea that religions are
Speaker 1: shaped by mass media. Yeah indeed, and um and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the only this is the only chapter in the
Speaker 1: book that deals with a non existent religion. Like there's
Speaker 1: all deal with with actual faiths and splinter groups, but
Speaker 1: this is one, as we pointed out, never actually exists.
Speaker 1: Now you have culturally resonant concepts of the Black Mass,
Speaker 1: ritual magic, uh, the Witches, Sabbath all kind of merged
Speaker 1: together and and just just setting back there in the
Speaker 1: public consciousness. On on top of that, you have you
Speaker 1: have nineteen fourteen, you have tales of Alistair Crawley's Black
Speaker 1: Masses and Exotic London, uh that were published. They were
Speaker 1: published stories about this in the New York World. Uh.
Speaker 1: So already you have this idea that there are there
Speaker 1: are people out there in the world that are engaging
Speaker 1: in these dark rights. Uh. You have ninety seven Herbert
Speaker 1: Gorman's uh tale The Place called Dagon, which is a
Speaker 1: work of fiction about Satanist or Satanist like cults that
Speaker 1: were descended from survivors of Salem. Yeah, this was a
Speaker 1: fascinating find for me in the research because I am
Speaker 1: a fan of weird fiction. I'm a fan of horror fiction,
Speaker 1: and obviously a lot of that traces back to HP
Speaker 1: Lovecraft's work, and HP Lovecraft was apparently influenced by this book,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I had never heard of before.
Speaker 1: I mean, or if I did, it just never resonated
Speaker 1: with me. Yes, same here he because he apparently mentions
Speaker 1: it in Supernatural Horror and Literature, which I've read, but
Speaker 1: he throws out a lot of authors and titles that,
Speaker 1: especially the modern reader is not going to be that
Speaker 1: connected with. But apparently it's a big influence on on Lovecraft, Block,
Speaker 1: Henry Cuttner, Dennis Wheatley, various other individuals who who definitely
Speaker 1: resonated at the time and affected the weird fiction world
Speaker 1: and then the larger pulp pop culture world to emerge
Speaker 1: from it. Yeah. And one of Jenkins arguments in this
Speaker 1: piece is that you can trace almost all the elements
Speaker 1: of the nineteen eighties Satanic panic back to this nine
Speaker 1: seven story, the place called Dagon, which ultimately you know,
Speaker 1: it's summarizes being like, it's a thriller that's set in
Speaker 1: western Massachusetts, which is where I'm originally from. Uh, and
Speaker 1: that descendants from Salem, Massachusetts, which if if you don't know,
Speaker 1: Salem is on the east coast of Massachusetts. Uh, practice
Speaker 1: the you know, which is famous for the witch trials
Speaker 1: and for for witchcraft. These descendants moved out to Western
Speaker 1: mass and essentially we're performing the same Satanic rituals and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, usage of it actually ties back
Speaker 1: to what we talked about in a in a previous
Speaker 1: podcast about grimoires. The the idea of this sort of
Speaker 1: ritual magic being used and in these texts being used
Speaker 1: to perform it, it's energing. Kins points out that by
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, uh, the roots were already there fictionally,
Speaker 1: but you also saw a few instances here and there
Speaker 1: of law enforcement actually beginning to at least entertain the
Speaker 1: possibility of sacrificial cult activities and in some crimes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that that's one of the really interesting things
Speaker 1: that probably helped popularize it too, right, is that, um,
Speaker 1: these various law enforcement officials, and I don't think that
Speaker 1: they necessarily had malicious intent. They probably thought that they
Speaker 1: were they had come upon, you know, actual leads in
Speaker 1: these stories. I mean, you know what I kept thinking
Speaker 1: of when I was reading this stuff was True Detective,
Speaker 1: the first season of True Detective, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you could look at the first season of True Detective
Speaker 1: as being about, uh, these misguided uh police officers who
Speaker 1: think that there's a secret uh ritualistic cult somewhere that's
Speaker 1: you know, running things and abusing children, which which ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's what that fictional story is about.
Speaker 1: But ultimately that was the same narrative that these FBI
Speaker 1: agents or police officers or whomever were, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of on the hunt because the thought thought was going on,
Speaker 1: they they wanted to be doing their jobs basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean, in one hand, you have this fictional world,
Speaker 1: but then you have in these fictional accounts of Satanic rights.
Speaker 1: But then you also have, you know, in the back
Speaker 1: of everyone's mind this idea that black Mass and ritual mass,
Speaker 1: magic and the witches Sabbath was real. You have these stories,
Speaker 1: uh that that you're you're reading about when in which
Speaker 1: there are people that are self identifying as Satanist. For instance, Uh,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, that's the when Anton LaVey founded the
Speaker 1: Church of Satan, and obviously that makes the that makes
Speaker 1: the media rounds. People are outraged about that, even though
Speaker 1: at heart, um LaVey's Satanism was really more grounded in
Speaker 1: h to a certain extent, satire and also cultural commentary
Speaker 1: and as well as sort of Carney high jinks and fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think this is one of the really important distinctions
Speaker 1: that we should make here in the podcast so that
Speaker 1: there isn't confusion for the listeners, is that the Anton
Speaker 1: Lavay Church of Satan is UH an entirely different philosophy organization.
Speaker 1: They refer to themselves as a religion. Uh, then what
Speaker 1: was even being imagined as these underground Satanic cults? And
Speaker 1: to sort of summarize it, I'm not I'm not the
Speaker 1: best at Anton LaVey uh philosophy, but my takeaway from
Speaker 1: it is that ultimately it was just about a philosophy
Speaker 1: of individualism and that Lave's thing was that each individual
Speaker 1: as their own God. And so they used quote unquote
Speaker 1: Satan as a metaphorical expression right of of having pride
Speaker 1: in yourself and being enlightened because you were your own god. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it was ultimately about and they they refer to
Speaker 1: this in the Hurrah, those special rational self interest. But
Speaker 1: you're right, it was very theatrical and it had like
Speaker 1: elements of data is um to it. I guess that
Speaker 1: this performance where like love a dresses up in these
Speaker 1: robes and has you know, his his eyebrows waxed so
Speaker 1: that they look villainous. You know, he was playing up
Speaker 1: to it, and he was using terms like Church of
Speaker 1: Satan or Book of Satan in order to provoke people.
Speaker 1: But then they were sort of appropriated again, uh, for
Speaker 1: this this panic about Satanic ritual abuse, and we're often conflated.
Speaker 1: It's really fascinating when you watch that Heraldo special to
Speaker 1: see members of of his church. I think at the
Speaker 1: time love was dead, but like his daughter and another
Speaker 1: member of his church who at the time was an
Speaker 1: army colonel. We're on stage and answering Horaldo's questions, basically
Speaker 1: trying to say, you know what we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: that they're completely two separate things. This, you know, Church
Speaker 1: of Satan is a ironic formance philosophy piece essentially, uh.
Speaker 1: Whereas like the the accusations of ritual abuse had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with them, right. It's it is interesting that
Speaker 1: they were kind of dude to a certain extent. They
Speaker 1: were riding the wave of of the the the sort
Speaker 1: of Satanic culture, if you will, but then also end
Speaker 1: up falling falling into the trap of satanic panic as well,
Speaker 1: because you had, of course satanic elements in rock music,
Speaker 1: you had satanic exploitation cinema that you know, really came
Speaker 1: into its own, especially in the nineties seventies. Um. And
Speaker 1: then on the other side, and do you also have
Speaker 1: some real life stuff that's happening, uh that that either
Speaker 1: has overt shades of Satanic culture to it or some
Speaker 1: some you know, more subliminal content, or even just media
Speaker 1: shades cast on it, such as Charles Manson, right right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Charles Manson obviously, you know, associated himself with quote
Speaker 1: the Devil or Satan, even in a looser fashion, I
Speaker 1: would say that Anton Leavey did. And again I suspect
Speaker 1: Charles Manson. For Charles Manson, who was largely theatrical purposes,
Speaker 1: I believe that he had a quote where he said,
Speaker 1: Satan and Christ will come together at the end of
Speaker 1: the world to judge humanity, and he is actually in
Speaker 1: that Haraldo special he had I think Haraldo had done
Speaker 1: like a previous special year earlier on Murder where he'd
Speaker 1: gone and visited Charles Manson interviewed him and he's like
Speaker 1: he can't even like gather any kind of coherence from
Speaker 1: their conversation because Manson is just rambling the whole time.
Speaker 1: But uh, but Haraldo is able to kind of take
Speaker 1: that and manipulate it through edits and footage to seem
Speaker 1: like he's at the heart of the Satanic ritual abuse.
Speaker 1: And in around ninety seven you see child abuse really
Speaker 1: becoming a trending topic in the media with years of
Speaker 1: media expose. Is to follow on child murder, child or
Speaker 1: not to be kidnapping very much, the you know the
Speaker 1: stranger danger, elements of of moral panic um that that really,
Speaker 1: I mean existed before the Satanic panic and survived well
Speaker 1: after cannoones to survive in many many ways. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's understandable now to look back
Speaker 1: on it and to see why parents are probably terrified
Speaker 1: at the time. You see real life things like the
Speaker 1: Jonestown incident happened, where there's a massacre that included many
Speaker 1: children that were killed by a cultist activity, and so
Speaker 1: that really takes on a prominent role in the media
Speaker 1: coverage of threats to children, and in this case, religiously
Speaker 1: themed threats to children. Uh. Then of course you have
Speaker 1: you have other murderers who end up taking elements from
Speaker 1: this moral outrage and incorporating it, incorporating it into their
Speaker 1: their crimes, or at least there uh the way they
Speaker 1: end up talking about their crimes after the fact. Richard Ramires,
Speaker 1: the night stalker murderer between of eighty five, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was. He was certainly more overt in it than
Speaker 1: Charles Manson. He would mention Satan during his crimes. His
Speaker 1: first court appearance, he shows up with a pentagram drawing
Speaker 1: on his hand and he yells Hail Satan. Uh. And
Speaker 1: of course that's just that just throws more kindling on
Speaker 1: the fire, this idea that there there's a danger here
Speaker 1: with with the with satanic individuals and they want to
Speaker 1: hurt us. And then there's this there's a danger president
Speaker 1: culture for our children. Yeah, sort of that behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: that there there's a Richard Ramirez or a Charles Manson. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they could be anywhere. Basically, it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of an invasion of the body snatchers all over again.
Speaker 1: You know. It's this idea that anybody could be part
Speaker 1: of these networks, anybody, uh could lure your children into
Speaker 1: danger or you, uh, and that you should be on
Speaker 1: heightened alert at all times. This explains a lot about
Speaker 1: me as an adult, having grown up in that period.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, now I understand why that was
Speaker 1: so hammered into my head. You know, don't accept candy
Speaker 1: from strangers that one, or like the old Is this
Speaker 1: an old wives tail or not? I don't know about
Speaker 1: a girl scout cookies with needles in them? Do you
Speaker 1: remember that? I never heard that one. Of course, I
Speaker 1: always heard the the the trick or treating uh story.
Speaker 1: You know that you know you need to be careful
Speaker 1: because there might be razor blades in the apple. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We used to have to um after we would trick
Speaker 1: or true to bring all the candy home, and if
Speaker 1: it was big enough to have a razor blade in it,
Speaker 1: my my parents would, you know, break it down into
Speaker 1: smaller pieces to make sure it was safe. You gotta
Speaker 1: be you gotta be careful. I mean there was when
Speaker 1: I was growing up, there was one house in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood where the guy would put um razor blades in
Speaker 1: the candied apples every year. But they were really good
Speaker 1: candied apples, so nobody said. So you just kind of
Speaker 1: ignore it because if you knew what's in there, you
Speaker 1: just know to take it out and enjoy the treat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's part of its part of the experience, another experience.
Speaker 1: Another activity that's often thrown into the the the into
Speaker 1: the Satanic Panic culture, of course, is Dungeons and Dragons. Um.
Speaker 1: I specifically remember getting into Dungeons and Dragons, and this
Speaker 1: is in the nineties, so this was after the Satanic
Speaker 1: Panic had died away for the most part, but I
Speaker 1: still received, uh, I think a chick list. What is
Speaker 1: it a chick pamphlet? Oh? Yeah, jack chick track. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I received it as part of a birthday present from
Speaker 1: an ant one year anti Dungeons and dragons. Really. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's fascinating. So so for listeners who don't know, a
Speaker 1: chick track is a very small comic book that is
Speaker 1: uh usually like a fundamentally Christian in nature um warning
Speaker 1: about the perils of pop culture and how they can
Speaker 1: draw you into Uh. No, I don't know in a
Speaker 1: necessarily satanic practices, but just you know, not being a
Speaker 1: good person and sending you to hell. Yeah, basically damnation
Speaker 1: was always the threat. Yeah, and it and it would
Speaker 1: often include a little uh you know, exploitive or grizzly
Speaker 1: kind of image reads to really grab particularly young reader's attentions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're fascinating because they incorporate elements of like the early
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties horror comments into these these comics that are
Speaker 1: ultimately against that kind of pop culture. Yeah. I love
Speaker 1: those things. You can actually go online and look at
Speaker 1: like the whole library of them. They're fascinating. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: D and D thing for me, I uh, it must
Speaker 1: have been the late eighties early nineties when I probably
Speaker 1: started playing Dungeons and Dragons as a little kid, and
Speaker 1: shortly thereafter I had that experience where I went to
Speaker 1: the religious school that I mentioned at the top and
Speaker 1: was sort of terrified that that this box set of
Speaker 1: dice and monster manual and and uh you know, the
Speaker 1: silly stuff about elves and dwarves and gnomes was somehow
Speaker 1: going to lead to my demise its satanic ritual abuse.
Speaker 1: But I did have some pretty heavy demons in there,
Speaker 1: and addition of the orcs and elves and then Dice,
Speaker 1: you know, there's something kind of arcane and uh them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and of course you know, like we mentioned this
Speaker 1: before when we talked about Gramoires in the other episode,
Speaker 1: but there's there's a lot of connections between the system
Speaker 1: of Dungeons and Dragons world of magic and the Grimoire
Speaker 1: cult world of magic. You know, they're they're they're connected.
Speaker 1: And obviously people who weren't familiar with either of those
Speaker 1: things kind of saw them as being one and the
Speaker 1: same and subsequently associated them with satanic ritual abuse. But
Speaker 1: it's really interesting, Um, the D and D thing, there
Speaker 1: was a group that was formed in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: called Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, and there the
Speaker 1: acronym was bad and I was serving the acronym then yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: reolutely uh And I believe that they followed a lawsuit
Speaker 1: against whomever owned D and D at the time. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that was Gary guy Gaxe or they
Speaker 1: had gone to TSR at that time or not. But
Speaker 1: this group then joined forces with this guy who's a
Speaker 1: psychiatrist named Thomas Rodecki. Um, because they wanted to raise
Speaker 1: the social awareness of the dangers of dungeons and dragons. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they basically associated it with the idea of that
Speaker 1: in psychotherapy that you act out role playing as a
Speaker 1: way to sort of you know, recover uh, and that
Speaker 1: but that within the game they were using role playing
Speaker 1: for violence and sex and fantasy, and that it would
Speaker 1: it would ultimately be the have the opposite effect. It
Speaker 1: would it would lead them down the wrong path. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it was linked with heavy metal music, which we've
Speaker 1: talked about earlier. And the demons within think that this
Speaker 1: is what's fascinating to me, is it all comes around again.
Speaker 1: After this whole Satanic panic movement kind of fades away
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties, Um, you start finding out that
Speaker 1: that uh, a lot of this, you know, their accusations
Speaker 1: weren't true. And then academics started doing a real research
Speaker 1: on dungeons and dragons and they found that, Uh. For instance,
Speaker 1: one of the accusations that bad made about dungeons and
Speaker 1: dragons was that increased the chance of, um, your kid
Speaker 1: committing suicide. In fact, I believe the founder was the
Speaker 1: mother of a of a teenager who committed suicide, and
Speaker 1: she blamed it on Dungeons and Dragons. Um, but there
Speaker 1: was empirical research that proved that that in fact was
Speaker 1: not the case, and that rates of suicide were lower
Speaker 1: in kids who played Dungeons and Dragons, and there was
Speaker 1: also no measurable negative impact on their psychological functioning, emotional measures,
Speaker 1: or reality testing. This is all from an article in
Speaker 1: Psychology Today that was published in turteen about Dungeons and Dragons,
Speaker 1: Satan and psychology, uh and uh. So their final conclusions
Speaker 1: here basically that the leaders of this group bad had
Speaker 1: completely exaggerated their own dentials. They cherry picked their data
Speaker 1: for convenience obviously of you know, making Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: look bad. And then this is the real interesting fact.
Speaker 1: So the psychiatrist that they associated with, Riddecki uh he
Speaker 1: in particular, was arrested in for sexually exploiting his patients.
Speaker 1: Uh He was trading basically um medicine for sexual favors
Speaker 1: from his patients. So this same guy who was accusing
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons of being responsible responsible for sexual abuse
Speaker 1: himself was a perpetrator. Alright, So so far we've discussed
Speaker 1: the cultural kindling for the most part that leads up
Speaker 1: to the moral panic of Satanic panic. UH. That as uh,
Speaker 1: as historian Philip Jenkins points out in his Peace Satanism
Speaker 1: in Which Will Abuse, UM, you can you can really
Speaker 1: trace a lot um of the the s R a
Speaker 1: Satanic which will abuse UH outcry to this particular book
Speaker 1: that comes out in Night, titled Michelle Remembers, UH comes
Speaker 1: out and it really cements this notion of ritualized sexual
Speaker 1: abuse by Satanic cults. Everything we've been talking about, black robes, um,
Speaker 1: you know, vile rights, UH, the the abuse against children,
Speaker 1: and it entails UH the so called Michelle's memories that
Speaker 1: are recalled during therapy in the nineteen seventies of her
Speaker 1: sexual abuse in the nineteen fifties in Vancouver. So we're
Speaker 1: talking Ozzy and Harriet Era here and that One of
Speaker 1: the interesting things about Michelle Remembers, which again this was
Speaker 1: a book that I was not familiar with before we
Speaker 1: got to the research for this UM, is that Michelle Smith,
Speaker 1: who was the patient that underwent the therapy and was
Speaker 1: the subject of this book, her therapist later became her husband.
Speaker 1: So this man who helped her uncover these memories, they
Speaker 1: also began an intimate relationship together. But over the course
Speaker 1: of the years, many people have discredited the claims that
Speaker 1: were made within the book. Um, both psychologists and I
Speaker 1: believe people from her actual past. Yeah, I think literally
Speaker 1: all of the charges that that come out of her
Speaker 1: personal accounts of this abuse comes from West African secret
Speaker 1: societies accounts of them anyway, they were imported into Canada
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties. But this narrative becomes really popular
Speaker 1: and and it has two key things that does here.
Speaker 1: It leads to other survivor accounts that spring up, other
Speaker 1: people that are that are writing books about their their
Speaker 1: reclaim memories of Satanic abuse in the past. And it
Speaker 1: also really pushes into a certain example, legitimizes the theory
Speaker 1: that traumatic memories can remain dormant only to be recalled
Speaker 1: later by a therapist. Yeah, it's really the common theme
Speaker 1: that runs throughout most of the Satanic panic hysteria. Is uh,
Speaker 1: this this this scientific idea of repressed memories being a
Speaker 1: psychological pheno aminon that certain therapists are going to be
Speaker 1: able to dig deep enough and pull out this traumatic
Speaker 1: memory and make you, you know, realize what what truly
Speaker 1: made you the way that you are what what is
Speaker 1: what is actually causing your problems? Um? And it was
Speaker 1: everybody from psychotherapists to child welfare advocates, and they didn't
Speaker 1: you know, again, like the law enforcement officials that were involved,
Speaker 1: I don't think that they necessarily had malicious intentions. Maybe
Speaker 1: some of them saw some profit. I would imagine that
Speaker 1: the author of Michelle Remembers saw some good paychecks out
Speaker 1: of that book's popularity. But uh, you know, basically they
Speaker 1: thought that this was evidence of these satanic cults actually existing,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to protect small children. That was essentially
Speaker 1: what they saw from it, um. And so they used
Speaker 1: hypnosis or different kinds of psychological protocols to essentially, you know,
Speaker 1: save people from Satan, to save people from these past
Speaker 1: traumatic events, and to dig up uh dirt on on
Speaker 1: the actual you know, threat that was still out there, um,
Speaker 1: which which led to a lot of finger pointing and
Speaker 1: and um in some cases which we'll talk about later
Speaker 1: with like West Memphis three uh accusations that send people
Speaker 1: to jail unjustly. Yeah, I mean you can certainly see
Speaker 1: the attractiveness of it both on the the treat the
Speaker 1: treatment side and the patient side. I mean, if you,
Speaker 1: you're you're feeling like you're out of sorts in the world,
Speaker 1: like you have some problem, and if only you could
Speaker 1: you could just carr out the root cause of it, right,
Speaker 1: and then if there is this, uh, this narrative that's
Speaker 1: presented to you that well, perhaps in the past you
Speaker 1: were abused, perhaps you were abused by this nefarious organization
Speaker 1: and all the main thing we need to do, or
Speaker 1: at least the first step, is to get those memories
Speaker 1: out of the dark, out of the you know, the
Speaker 1: closet of your mind, and pull them out to where
Speaker 1: we can dispel them, and to give you an idea
Speaker 1: of just how prevalent this was. UH. An organization formed
Speaker 1: in around this idea of repressed memories. It was called
Speaker 1: the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. And here's some statistics I
Speaker 1: found from a USA Today article. At the time when
Speaker 1: it was first formed and they were interviewing them, uh,
Speaker 1: they said that, um, uh, they had done a survey
Speaker 1: where they interviewed three thousand of families and their preliminary
Speaker 1: findings were of just these three thousand people. Of the
Speaker 1: children within these families said that they people who were
Speaker 1: adults now but who had been children, say that they
Speaker 1: had been tortured in Satanic rituals. So of the three
Speaker 1: thousand people that they interviewed, that that's huge to me
Speaker 1: and sounds uh like like an astronomical number when you
Speaker 1: apply that kind of generalization to the entire American population. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there's this also the interesting study A group
Speaker 1: psychologists at the State Universe of New York at Buffalo
Speaker 1: looked further into it and they found that of eight
Speaker 1: hundred therapists UH had at least or sorry, they interviewed
Speaker 1: thirty thousand therapists and eight hundred of them said that
Speaker 1: they had at least once in their sessions with their patients,
Speaker 1: had come across cases of Satanic ritual abuse. So this,
Speaker 1: I mean, there was hard evidence as far as people
Speaker 1: I saw that this was happening, that it was pervasive
Speaker 1: and it needed to be stopped. Yea. And of course
Speaker 1: these narratives that they're pulling out there obviously informed by
Speaker 1: the the established narrative in the culture that that of
Speaker 1: the retrieve memories, but also um, all of these influences
Speaker 1: we've talked about before, the culture of black masses and Sabbaths,
Speaker 1: every Devil movie that came out in the nineties, sixties, seventies,
Speaker 1: and eighties, all of it coloring your perceptions, um, of
Speaker 1: the adults. Anyway, Now, what happens when you attempt to
Speaker 1: pull these uh, the these types of memories from from
Speaker 1: a small child, though, from someone who does hasn't seen
Speaker 1: Rosemary's Baby, who who doesn't listen to uh, who hasn't
Speaker 1: heard Heraldo on television talking about the dangers of death metal.
Speaker 1: What's said, Well, we see that in UM in a
Speaker 1: very pivotal nineteen four case to McMartin preschool UM sexual
Speaker 1: abuse case in southern California. And this is a case
Speaker 1: where prosecutors charge that a ring of teachers were sexually
Speaker 1: abusing hundreds of small children in rituals that involved robes
Speaker 1: and masks and pentacles and church altars. And the case
Speaker 1: now is regarded as completely focus. But at the time
Speaker 1: it sent out these waves of fear just through throughout
Speaker 1: the society, got picked up on the media and just
Speaker 1: you know, boosted uh, you know, tenfold. Um. In this case,
Speaker 1: like cases to follow uh, it followed a particular flow.
Speaker 1: You had a limited plausible accusation of abuse that emerges
Speaker 1: at a school, and then you haven't have an investigation
Speaker 1: and you know, interrogate the the child and then you
Speaker 1: get this therapist derived account from from an impressionable young
Speaker 1: child regarding what happened. And since these kids, for the
Speaker 1: most part, they have no knowledge of of adult sexuality,
Speaker 1: but they but they can tell that this this concerned
Speaker 1: adult authority figure is trying to get something disturbing out
Speaker 1: of them. So what does a small child bring to
Speaker 1: the table, what can they possibly pull out? They start
Speaker 1: talking about, well, well, they made me drink peepee, they
Speaker 1: made me eat Yeah. Yeah, It's basically like they go
Speaker 1: for their version of whatever the worst taboo possible thing
Speaker 1: could be at the time. And you know, so of
Speaker 1: course they think of it as being things like that.
Speaker 1: Then uh it's the word copperphilia. Yeah yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: that McMartin incident was one of many. Yeah, there's I
Speaker 1: believe in the Heraldo special as well that they talked
Speaker 1: about a Presidio daycare center that had a very similar
Speaker 1: kind of uh incident that was that was labeled as
Speaker 1: being potentially attached to satanic ritual abuse. And there is
Speaker 1: an interesting part two where they talked about the McMartin
Speaker 1: school abuse scandal. I believe, and they started comparing that
Speaker 1: their idea of Satanic rituals as being somehow associated with
Speaker 1: the Episcopal Church, which I thought was interesting. It felt
Speaker 1: like this strange smear campaign against Episcopals, as if it
Speaker 1: wasn't like a a valid form of Christianity. It was,
Speaker 1: it was brief. It was kind of interesting. And so
Speaker 1: in both of these cases we see this established in
Speaker 1: the media, in the increasingly in the public mindset, uh
Speaker 1: that Satanic ritual abuse is a threat to our children
Speaker 1: as well as to the child that we used to be,
Speaker 1: that we all could have been conceivably sexually abused by
Speaker 1: Satanist in the past, and we have only to to
Speaker 1: pull that out of our out of out of the
Speaker 1: closet of our memory. But the thing is, it's it
Speaker 1: goes beyond just Heraldo Rivera right. It becomes a part
Speaker 1: of it becomes disseminated outward through professional organizations, through police, therapist,
Speaker 1: youth workers, seminars aimed at the discovery of new Satanic
Speaker 1: abuse histories. And so you reach the point by the
Speaker 1: by the nineteen eighties where the panic is spreading outward
Speaker 1: into the UK, into Australia, Canada. The Netherlands, South Africa,
Speaker 1: anywhere that an American therapeutic and criminological literature is read. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's so the Netherlands part is one of the
Speaker 1: ones that's interesting to me. Uh so Uh, I am
Speaker 1: a fan of heavy metal music. Uh and uh uh.
Speaker 1: The Netherlands and Norway in particular are are known for
Speaker 1: as being the home of black metal, this particular genre
Speaker 1: of metal, which was largely associated with this sort of
Speaker 1: traditionalist movement of burning down Christian churches, and of their
Speaker 1: members were accused and tried for murder. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: even though they didn't necessarily have I don't even think
Speaker 1: like possibly their their song lyrics have anything to do
Speaker 1: with Satan or devil worship, but because they were against
Speaker 1: Christianity again, the Satanic panics hysteria sort of spread over there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that the cultural kindling was perfect for that spark
Speaker 1: to fly across the ocean and take root. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to uh like how much of the messaging
Speaker 1: was of course aimed at parents, but also at teenagers
Speaker 1: about the dangers of all the stuff about dungeons and
Speaker 1: dragons and the music. Uh. And you know, when you're
Speaker 1: a teenager of course, all you want to do is
Speaker 1: is is find the significance in your life in it
Speaker 1: and at times lash out against the authority figures in
Speaker 1: their expectations, so you actually end up fleeing to that stuff.
Speaker 1: Like I I definitely had a copy of both that
Speaker 1: Fake Necronomicon and the AI Satanic Bible. Nice paperback versions
Speaker 1: of both. Satanic Bible was a best seller. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of I think there were a lot
Speaker 1: of both adolescents and adults with that same experience. They
Speaker 1: were like, oh, by this is you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a I imagine the kind of thing that you
Speaker 1: would find it urban outfitters nowadays or something near the
Speaker 1: checkout line. Yeah. I remember having both those books, listening
Speaker 1: to Marilyn Manson. Yeah, very much engaging in that, you know,
Speaker 1: in the in the in the on one level, in
Speaker 1: the possibility that there was something to do all this darkness,
Speaker 1: but also just in the you know, need to stand
Speaker 1: apart from the adult world. Yeah, it's the traditional sort
Speaker 1: of adolescent anti authoritarian reflex, right, combined with the um
Speaker 1: the hysteria at the time moving around satanic ritual abuse.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I could see whether two would be conflated.
Speaker 1: I mean, especially in a if you're if you grow
Speaker 1: up in like a Christian or even just vaguely Christian
Speaker 1: environment in which you have the the the economy of
Speaker 1: good and evil, of God and Satan, and uh, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a tendency to sympathize with the villain in
Speaker 1: that piece. And then uh and and by his book,
Speaker 1: yeah it is, it is right exactly. And so like
Speaker 1: my experience growing up was literally being in one of
Speaker 1: these uh private Christian schools where I was told constantly,
Speaker 1: if you do the wrong thing, uh, then you're going
Speaker 1: to be possessed by a demon and you'll possibly murder
Speaker 1: your family. I mean, this was like an actual thing
Speaker 1: that our pastor would tell us in class every day. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I mean this is probably around
Speaker 1: I don't know, so so towards the tail end of
Speaker 1: this stuff, but but you know, uh, they fill fill
Speaker 1: your head with this enough. It's it's as bad, if
Speaker 1: not worse than Ozzy Osborne Box or King Diamonds. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know that stuff is just largely engaging in
Speaker 1: fun and theme. It's theatrical. Yeah, yeah, I don't Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. As a as a person who's into
Speaker 1: heavy metal, I don't know of a lot of people
Speaker 1: are famous metal musicians that are serious members of a
Speaker 1: satanic organization. Yeah yeah, I mean I think of like
Speaker 1: some of the interviews I've seen with like metal that
Speaker 1: that I enjoy, And if you just listen to their
Speaker 1: their their their lyrics and their music, you get, you know,
Speaker 1: very much the the theme they're going for and this
Speaker 1: the dark, the heavy, the you know, industrial disturbing nature
Speaker 1: the thing. But then you see an interview of them
Speaker 1: and they just seem like like goofy guys their music,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, absolutely, I mean I think that that's
Speaker 1: that was probably the case with Ozzy Osbourne as well.
Speaker 1: He's in that Heraldo thing and it's it's hilarious watching
Speaker 1: him be interviewed. He's much more lucid than the later
Speaker 1: Ozzy Osby one of reality TV the counter theirs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he uh, you know, he obviously wasn't articulate enough
Speaker 1: to kind of argue on his own behalf of why
Speaker 1: he was just using these elements this imagery and symbology, uh,
Speaker 1: theatrically as part of his stage persona, uh, rather than
Speaker 1: you know it being directly impactful on teenagers in America
Speaker 1: committing crimes against other children or their or their their
Speaker 1: peers even um there, yeah, there there were moments in
Speaker 1: that in the Haraldo special where they they're interviewing kids
Speaker 1: who are in prison for having killed uh, their their
Speaker 1: peers in school like uh. I can't remember the name
Speaker 1: of the particular um guy, he'd probably be a little
Speaker 1: older than us now, probably in his forties, but um,
Speaker 1: there was an interview with him and he just, you know,
Speaker 1: straight up blames it on heavy metal and satanic uh participation.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling it was Seawan Seller's or Pete
Speaker 1: Rowland that was it. That was the guy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's um. You know, I think it was also
Speaker 1: easy for people like that who had committed these atrocious
Speaker 1: crimes to say to put the locus of control externally
Speaker 1: onto something else and to say it wasn't me, it's
Speaker 1: not inside of me. I didn't mean to do this.
Speaker 1: It was because of heavy metal or Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: or and they're just yeah, they're just taking the excuse
Speaker 1: that the media has has crafted for them and presented
Speaker 1: them and say, hey, it's not your fault, it's because
Speaker 1: you got involved in this this thing that has a
Speaker 1: viral component, that that if you just start rolling the
Speaker 1: dungeons and Dragons dice, if you start listening to this
Speaker 1: heavy metal music, that it's just a slippery, slow to
Speaker 1: just violent outbreaks in demanding possession. Yeah, and that leads
Speaker 1: us to the West Memphis three. You want to talk
Speaker 1: about them now, because I think that's certainly a case.
Speaker 1: Even though it kind of it tends to fall towards
Speaker 1: the end of the life cycle of satanic panic. Um,
Speaker 1: it represents some of the worst, the worst residual effects
Speaker 1: of satanic panic, at least on you know, an individual level.
Speaker 1: So this happened in between I believe was the the
Speaker 1: the actual murders happened in ninety three, I think. And uh,
Speaker 1: the trial lasted or there are multiple trials I believe
Speaker 1: for two years. Um. But essentially, if you if you
Speaker 1: want to know more about this, I highly suggest that
Speaker 1: you go watch these documentaries that they're called Paradise Lost,
Speaker 1: Is that right? Uh? Yeah, And and they're really well
Speaker 1: put together by a crew that was basically they're shooting
Speaker 1: from the minute these guys were on trial. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it it sort of documents the the cases throughout the
Speaker 1: twenty years I met. Maybe I don't know, does the
Speaker 1: I don't I haven't seen the last one. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've seen. I don't know if it goes up
Speaker 1: to then when these guys were released. But essentially, to
Speaker 1: boil it down to its simplest terms, these three teenagers
Speaker 1: in West Memphis, Arkansas were accused of, tried and convicted
Speaker 1: from murdering three younger boys, and it was supposedly part
Speaker 1: of a satanic ritual. Uh. These these three guys were
Speaker 1: all fans of heavy metal. They looked the part uh,
Speaker 1: and it was easy to place the blame on them. However,
Speaker 1: in eleven UH, they were able to make a plea
Speaker 1: for their innocence based on DNA that was recovered from
Speaker 1: the scene, and they were released. Essentially, the judge said, UM,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're guilty up to time served. Um, so
Speaker 1: the time that they had served from until eleven and
Speaker 1: and they're out. Now you've probably seen there's UH fictional
Speaker 1: feature accounts of of this story. What's the movie that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has a Reese Witherspoon in it as one of
Speaker 1: the mothers of the victims. Um and Uh, Colin Firth
Speaker 1: I believe plays a private investigator who's working on their
Speaker 1: behalf to try to find evidence that that proves there.
Speaker 1: In a sense, it's a complex case, and it's it's
Speaker 1: dreamly complicated. Yeah, that's why I don't feel like we
Speaker 1: can really do it justice here without doing an entire episode.
Speaker 1: If you have bungled investigations on one hand, you definitely
Speaker 1: have satanic panic and play. Yeah, and there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff to the weird stuff that goes on between
Speaker 1: some of the parents and the people making the documentary,
Speaker 1: where the the filmmakers themselves sort of become part of
Speaker 1: the story, and there's implications that maybe one or two
Speaker 1: of the parents might have been involved in the actual
Speaker 1: murders themselves. It's it's really confusing and disturbing, But ultimately
Speaker 1: it comes down to that the three teenagers who were
Speaker 1: convicted of these crimes were in fact innocent uh and
Speaker 1: wrongfully put away for crimes they didn't commit. Yeah, of course, sadly,
Speaker 1: crimes that we we do not we don't have an
Speaker 1: answer for. We don't know who is responsible for exactly.
Speaker 1: That's the sad part is that the person or persons
Speaker 1: who did do it got away with it. But luckily,
Speaker 1: as we said, this occurred towards the end of Satanic Panic,
Speaker 1: as it's going out, as it's uh is, it's leaving
Speaker 1: the public mindset and becoming far less of a media obsession. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you might wonder what what caused that? What makes
Speaker 1: us get away from that? What what creates a situation
Speaker 1: so that by um, you see you see cases where
Speaker 1: the media doesn't jump on the Satanic bandwagon four um
Speaker 1: abuse charges at an elementary How do we get to
Speaker 1: the point where by you have the Columbine shootings And
Speaker 1: despite all the various theories that come up initially in
Speaker 1: the wake of the awful incident, Satanism is not one
Speaker 1: of them. Right, Yeah, that could have very easily have
Speaker 1: been tagged within the Satanic Panic easily and if it
Speaker 1: had occurred years earlier, no doubt it would have. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's this really interesting article that I read uh UM
Speaker 1: called the Satanic Ritual Abuse Panic as a Religious Studies
Speaker 1: data as part of the journal International Review for the
Speaker 1: History of Religions that sort of this was written in
Speaker 1: two thousand three that summarizes sort of the the entire
Speaker 1: era of Satanic Panic and looks at this this sort
Speaker 1: of ending phase, and their conclusion is there was no
Speaker 1: evidence for abuse of Satanic cults existing. Uh, anything that
Speaker 1: connected them as as ever existing, largely came from these
Speaker 1: repressed memories uh and or they were extracted from small
Speaker 1: children who then subsequently recovered from what happened to them
Speaker 1: through the use of psychotherapy. But there there was there
Speaker 1: was no actual, tenable forensic evidence that these groups ever
Speaker 1: existed or responsible for these crimes. Uh and and uh.
Speaker 1: There there's sort of a a sadder thing at play here,
Speaker 1: I think, which is that, um, that human culture maybe
Speaker 1: has a harder time dealing with child abuse or violence,
Speaker 1: especially this this kind of you know, horrific violence, as
Speaker 1: in the case of the West Memphis three especially sexual abuse, um,
Speaker 1: without being able to place it into a fantastic narrative
Speaker 1: that it is somehow outside of the every day And
Speaker 1: that's the unfortunate part about this is that in a
Speaker 1: lot of these cases where these children and people were
Speaker 1: abused were hurt, um, oftentimes it was just their friends
Speaker 1: or relatives, you know, it was that that is the
Speaker 1: most disturbing thing of all, because you want to be
Speaker 1: able to position that kind of thing outside of your
Speaker 1: and the idiot sphere out you want to place it
Speaker 1: on another and even if they look like you and
Speaker 1: soon to be the same group, Like if the narrative is, oh,
Speaker 1: well they're secretly a Satanist, that's far It's far easier
Speaker 1: to wrap your head around, as fantastic as some of
Speaker 1: the ramifications are, than to say, well, they're just this
Speaker 1: person that we just thought were like us, someone that
Speaker 1: lived within our sphere, within our family. Even Yeah, this,
Speaker 1: this is a good quote that I liked from that
Speaker 1: article that addresses that the author, whose last name is Frankfurter,
Speaker 1: I don't know what his first name is. He says,
Speaker 1: human memory psychologists have shown is clearly not a matter
Speaker 1: of historical snapshots, even in the cases of trauma, and
Speaker 1: it is enormously subject to suggestion, fantasy, social conditions, and
Speaker 1: cultural nuances. So largely I think that's what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. Yeah, I mean, you basically had a situation
Speaker 1: where the experts moved in, the actual experts, not the
Speaker 1: ones that would appear on like the soralto Special, and
Speaker 1: they said, look, it doesn't exist. You had people like
Speaker 1: Kenneth Lanning, FBI lead investigator on these so called sex rings,
Speaker 1: who is a skeptical of it from the beginning and
Speaker 1: then was an outspoken critic of it in the media.
Speaker 1: Yet study of ritual crime allegations sponsored by the National
Speaker 1: Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, and it discredited virtually
Speaker 1: everything um as a massive study, and they only found
Speaker 1: a very few cases of loan or or paired perpetrators
Speaker 1: using ritualized tactics to intimidate children or thrilled themselves. And
Speaker 1: they looked at twelve thousand incidents and they couldn't find
Speaker 1: a single one that provided evidence quote of a well
Speaker 1: organized intergenerational Satanic cult who's sexually molested and tortured children
Speaker 1: in their homes or schools for years and committed a
Speaker 1: series of murders unquote. So UK studies end up backing
Speaker 1: this up. The ming Martin preschool case falls apart. So
Speaker 1: the media begins to realize, oh, well, there isn't anything
Speaker 1: to this story. This is uh. They start talking to
Speaker 1: the actual experts, and that the discrediting of Satanic panic
Speaker 1: becomes the media narrative for a while, effectively killing it
Speaker 1: off at least in the United States. But then, of
Speaker 1: course you have lingering elements of it that remain in
Speaker 1: other areas, particular in South Africa, for years to fall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so one of the things that I think is
Speaker 1: an interesting question for us to sort of pose to
Speaker 1: ourselves and to the audience is is uh so we
Speaker 1: have had these uh moments of hysteria throughout human history,
Speaker 1: you know, UM satanic panic. Uh. One of the ones
Speaker 1: that comes to mind for me is something that I
Speaker 1: researched here for a video that we did about, um,
Speaker 1: the Pokemon panic in Japan in the late nineties. There
Speaker 1: was this idea that there was an incident where an
Speaker 1: episode of Pokemon supposedly caused seizures kids and then like this,
Speaker 1: I believe it was something like I can't remember the
Speaker 1: exact statistics off the top of my head, but something
Speaker 1: like three thousand kids overnight claimed that they all had seizures.
Speaker 1: So these kinds of you know, like like we were
Speaker 1: talking about early or about how our memory and trauma
Speaker 1: is susceptible to suggestion and cultural nuances. Um, they recur
Speaker 1: over and over again in human history. But I can't
Speaker 1: really remember a large incident of that in the last
Speaker 1: I don't know decade other than Ebolabola and UH and vaccines.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, movement, Well, I guess on both
Speaker 1: sides depending Yeah, yeah, so it's kind of fascinating they
Speaker 1: have in neither of those I think really got the
Speaker 1: traction that stuff like satanic panic did. And I don't
Speaker 1: know why that is. Um it's interesting to think about, though,
Speaker 1: you know, is it is it because of the proliferation
Speaker 1: of social media it spreads information faster and further, or
Speaker 1: is it uh, simply because you know, mass media has
Speaker 1: been around long enough now that there's somewhat of an
Speaker 1: innoculation maybe against the hysteria that can be spread by it.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Well, there's certainly more voices in the media. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they're more they're more channels. There are more
Speaker 1: people on the channels talking constantly about the subject matter.
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, maybe there's uh maybe maybe our our
Speaker 1: media is less susceptible to long term um panic with
Speaker 1: no grounded evidence. Yeah, it does. It does make you
Speaker 1: wonder like, could could something like which trials or Satanic
Speaker 1: panic happen today? You know, would are we as humans
Speaker 1: uh susceptible to that? Still? I have a feeling we are.
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot of it comes down to
Speaker 1: the particular environment that we find ourselves in and uh
Speaker 1: and hopefully I mean hopefully we are a little less
Speaker 1: susceptible to it, just based on how much information is
Speaker 1: out there. It just comes down to how much information
Speaker 1: are we willing to ignore to support this uh, this
Speaker 1: this this script for what has happened or what could
Speaker 1: happen to us that fulfill some need to either make
Speaker 1: the danger more tolerable, more palpable. You know. It's like,
Speaker 1: like we were saying, is sometimes the the more outrageous
Speaker 1: explanation or something is more attractive because it's it's easier
Speaker 1: to handle because it's it's it's you position it outside
Speaker 1: of your sphere and it has lines and boundaries that
Speaker 1: you can sort of use to yeah to again like
Speaker 1: stick to the narratives, stick to the strip, to the script,
Speaker 1: and um somewhat try to understand experiences that are so
Speaker 1: horrifying that normally otherwise you wouldn't be able to understand them.
Speaker 1: All right, So there you have it, Satanic panic. Um.
Speaker 1: We took you through it from the beginning to the
Speaker 1: end of it. Uh, And we would love to hear
Speaker 1: from any of you out there who, like us, have
Speaker 1: some element of their childhood immersed in the world of
Speaker 1: Satanic panic, or if you came about after Satanic Panic.
Speaker 1: But we'd love to hear, you know, an outsider's take
Speaker 1: on on all of this, UM, like, do you see
Speaker 1: any of these elements at work in your in your
Speaker 1: modern world? Um? If you would like to learn more,
Speaker 1: check out the landing page for this episode, it's Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. I'll conclude links out
Speaker 1: to some of the resources that we mentioned and what
Speaker 1: about you, sir? You can find me personally at Christian
Speaker 1: Sager dot tumbler dot com. UH and UH for the
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works content that I produce, I am primarily
Speaker 1: working on the brain stuff YouTube channel. If you haven't
Speaker 1: seen that yet, check it out. That's our general science channel,
Speaker 1: UH and I also work on the main how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works YouTube channel as well, where we're producing shows like
Speaker 1: what the Stuff UH and interviews and content like that
Speaker 1: cool cool. Thanks once again to Christian for joining me
Speaker 1: here UH and in the meantime, you want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with me, you can reach out to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind at how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because
Speaker 1: it how stuff works come, we can go get gobn
Speaker 1: go get me