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The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organized abuse, or sadistic ritual abuse) starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today.
Mar 31, 2021 · 1980: The ‘proper fuel’ for panic. When the book “Michelle Remembers” was published in 1980, introducing readers to a cast of murderous Canadian satanists, it landed on a powder keg of...
- Alan Yuhas
- 13 min
Mar 31, 2021 · Perhaps the most common misunderstanding about “Satanic Panic” — the societal fear of the occult that troubled the US and other parts of the world throughout the 1980s and into the early...
- Aja Romano
- The Devil Made Them Do It
- Haunted Hamburgers
- The Dungeon Master
- Backward Momentum
- Dark Daycare
Satan was kind of a big deal in the 1970s. Novelist William Peter Blatty scored a huge hit in 1971 with The Exorcist, a story of demonic possession that Blatty claimed was loosely inspired by a real exorcism performed by the Catholic Church. The book was followed by a film adaptation in 1973 that continued those claims and was so shocking that ther...
One of the most common myths during the height of satanic panic was the idea that family-friendly corporations were secretly in league with the devil. These urban legends actually predate Michelle Remembers in some cases, and the earliest victim may have been Ronald McDonald. In October 1978, McDonald’sfelt compelled to publicly announce that franc...
Throughout the 1980s, a number of children’s characters were accused of being in league with the devil, or at least with what some called heathen gods. ThunderCats was purportedly intended to promote Eastern mysticism; the He-Man and Snake Mountain playset supposedly invoked demonic imagery because kids could use a microphone to deepen their voices...
Even if you’re not familiar with satanic panic, you’ve probably heard of the idea that certain songs played backward—a technique known as backmasking—reveals subliminal messages. Rock music was especially susceptible to those accusations in the 1980s, when bands like Led Zeppelinand The Rolling Stones were charged with hiding their support of the d...
As silly as some of these examples are, satanic panic also led to some very serious and life-altering consequences. In 1983, one mother accusedan employee of the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, of molesting her child, triggering a massive investigation that went back two decades and eventually grew to include seven employees of t...
Jan 20, 2015 · In the 1980s, allegations of ritual abuse at a preschool in Southern California led to the longest, most expensive trial in U.S. history. The McMartin Preschool case — which resulted in zero...
Apr 8, 2022 · In 1980, consumer products maker Proctor & Gamble was hit by Satanic Panic rumors that its century-old corporate logo – a face in a crescent moon looking at a field of 13 stars – was a sign of support for Satan. The company denied the allegations and filed lawsuits to try to discourage the story’s spread.
May 18, 2021 · De Young spent her career studying moral panics — specifically, what became known as the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s, when false accusations of the abuse of children in satanic rituals...
