Satanic panic

Extracted Attributes

• Type

  Moral panic

• Origin Date

  1980

• Primary Region

  North America (later global)

• Estimated Cases

  12,000+ documented unsubstantiated claims

• Key Methodology

  Recovered-memory therapy (discredited)

• Associated Terms

  Satanic ritual abuse (SRA), Ritual abuse

Timeline

• Publication of 'Michelle Remembers' by Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith, introducing the concept of Satanic ritual abuse. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1980-01-01

• A mother in Manhattan Beach, California, accuses McMartin preschool workers of abuse, initiating the longest and most expensive trial in U.S. history. (Source: History.com)

  1983-01-01

• The McMartin preschool trial concludes after seven years with no convictions for any of the accused. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1990-01-01

• The New York Times reports that investigating police were unable to substantiate any of the 12,000 documented allegations of organized cult abuse. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1994-01-01

• The West Memphis Three are freed from prison nearly 20 years after their conviction for murders portrayed as Satanic sacrifices. (Source: The New York Times)

  2011-01-01

• A Texas couple is released and awarded $3.4 million for wrongful convictions after serving 21 years for Satanic ritual abuse allegations. (Source: The New York Times)

  2013-01-01

Satanic panic

The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA), sometimes known as ritual abuse, starting in North America in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient (and future wife), Michelle Smith, which used the controversial and now discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make claims about Satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations, which arose afterward throughout much of the United States, involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. Some allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifice, pornography, and prostitution. Nearly every aspect of the ritual abuse is controversial, including its definition, the source of the allegations and proof thereof, testimonies of alleged victims, and court cases involving the allegations and criminal investigations. The panic affected lawyers, therapists, and social workers who handled allegations of child sexual abuse. Allegations initially brought together widely dissimilar groups, including religious fundamentalists, police investigators, child advocates, therapists, and clients in psychotherapy. The term satanic abuse was more common early on; this later became satanic ritual abuse and further secularized into simply ritual abuse. Over time, the accusations became more closely associated with dissociative identity disorder (then called multiple personality disorder) and anti-government conspiracy theories, such as QAnon. Initial interest arose via the publicity campaign for Pazder's 1980 book Michelle Remembers, and it was sustained and popularized throughout the decade by coverage of the McMartin preschool trial. Testimonials, symptom lists, rumors, and techniques to investigate or uncover memories of SRA were disseminated through professional, popular, and religious conferences as well as through talk shows, sustaining and further spreading the moral panic throughout the United States and beyond. In some cases, allegations resulted in criminal trials with varying results; after seven years in court, the McMartin trial resulted in no convictions for any of the accused, while other cases resulted in lengthy sentences, some of which were later reversed. Scholarly interest in the topic slowly built, eventually resulting in the conclusion that the phenomenon was a moral panic, which, as one researcher put it in 2017, "involved hundreds of accusations that devil-worshipping paedophiles were operating America's white middle-class suburban daycare centers." A 1994 article in the New York Times stated that: "Of the more than 12,000 documented accusations nationwide, investigating police were not able to substantiate any allegations of organized cult abuse".

Web Search Results

• Satanic panic - Wikipedia

  With both children and adults, no corroborating evidence has been found for anything except pseudosatanism in which the satanic and ritual aspects were secondary to and used as a cover for sexual abuse. Despite this lack of objective evidence, and aided by the competing definitions of what SRA actually was, proponents claimed SRA was a real phenomenon throughout the peak and during the decline of the moral panic. Despite allegations appearing in the United States, Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia, no material evidence has been found to corroborate allegations of organized cult-based abuse that practices human sacrifice and cannibalism. Though trauma specialists frequently claimed the allegations made by children and adults were the same, in reality the statements made by [...] of a conspiracy or network of religiously motivated child abusers. [...] with ambiguous meaning (such as graffiti or vandalism) generally committed by teenagers were attributed to the actions of Satanic cults.

• What Sparked the Satanic Panic of the 1980s? - History.com

  The satanic panic, as it has become known, was what sociologists call a "moral panic,” says Mary deYoung, professor emeritus of sociology at Grand Valley State University and author of The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic. Moral panics occur during times of social change, she explains, when people identify an enemy or “folk devil” as the cause of a social shift. [...] In the case of the satanic panic, one social change involved the increasing use of day care centers as more women entered the workforce. Public concern emerged about “latchkey kids,” whose parents were still at work when they arrived home from school. People feared that without adult supervision, children “were potentially up to no good, listening to the wrong kind of music or playing these fantasy role-playing games,” deYoung says. The folk devil in this moral panic became the literal devil, as well as alleged Satan worshipers who sought to corrupt and abuse America’s youth. Although the satanic panic did not uncover any actual satanic cults, it led to real court cases that accused musicians, educators and day care workers of endangering children and teens. [...] The book and the press coverage surrounding it introduced the concept of satanic ritual abuse, a now-discredited term for physical and sexual abuse allegedly inflicted during occult rituals. During the 1980s and early ’90s, up to 100 day care centers in the United States faced accusations of satanic ritual abuse. The first and most prominent day care ensnared in the satanic panic was a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, run by Virginia McMartin. In 1983, a mother accused McMartin’s grandson of abusing her 2-year-old son. Based on children’s testimony, she also accused McMartin preschool workers of leading children into secret underground tunnels where they dressed up as witches and flew around in the air.

• It's Time to Revisit the Satanic Panic - The New York Times

  Early in the 1980s, baseless conspiracy theories about cults committing mass child abuse spread around the country. Talk shows and news programs fanned fears, and the authorities investigated hundreds of allegations. Even as cases slowly collapsed and skepticism prevailed, defendants went to prison, families were traumatized and millions of dollars were spent on prosecutions. The phenomenon was so sprawling that, in its aftermath, it took on several names, like the ritual abuse scare or the day care panic. But one name has increasingly stuck: the satanic panic. [...] Nearly 200 people were charged with crimes over the course of the satanic panic, and dozens were convicted. Many defendants were eventually freed, sometimes after years. Three Arkansas teenagers who became known as the West Memphis Three were freed in 2011, almost 20 years after they were convicted of murders that prosecutors portrayed as a satanic sacrifice. In 2013, a Texas couple were released after 21 years in prison; they were later awarded $3.4 million from a state fund for wrongful convictions. [...] The authorities also asked therapists to help interview hundreds of children. They questioned them for hours at a time, often asking leading and suggestive questions, he said. “We as professionals were singularly ill-equipped,” Mr. Myers said. “Nobody had thought about proper forensic interviews in these situations.” The allegations “didn’t move to full-blown satanism immediately,” said Richard Beck, the author of a book about the panic. “The intermediary steps were people saying there was something weird or elaborate about what happened, and a fair number of those claims came out of the interviews.”

• [PDF] The Devil Is in The Details: An Analysis of the Satanic Panic

  reality of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) allegations. The Satanic Panic was useful to people in various positions, allowing for unity across political and racial divides against common, if fictitious, foes. 23 Chapter Breakdown Beyond the Satanic Panic itself, the history leading up to it is largely incomplete. Since most histories begin with the 1980 book Michelle Remembers , they often neglect the growing concern about Satanism leading up to it. Chapter 1, “Anno Satanas, 1964 -1978,” will provide the history of Satanism and the concerns about it leading up to the 1980s, placing it into the greater context of the growing trend of conservative backlash that spawned the Satanic Panic . Chapter 2, “The New Inquisition, 1979 -1987,” will cover the initial rise of the Satanic [...] a line between mundane, non -conspiratorial religious beliefs and conspiracism is more the realm of theologians and religious scholars than historians. This work will assume that the su pernatural and the divine are not active forces at play in history. The conspiracy put forward in the Satanic Panic is assumed to be untrue. However, this assumption is not simply born from a rejection of the supernatural. There has never been any substantial evidence that supports a vast, interconnected, global network of Satanic cultists, as supported by numerous investigations, including a decade -long investigation conducted by the FBI. 16 However, none of this means that Satanic cults are not real or that Satanists have not committed horrible crimes. Previous works on [...] way.” 10 The foes in a conspiracy theory are akin to evil automatons. They do not often have complex personal motives and are seemingly infallible save for a few handfuls of mistakes they may make along the way. In the case of Satanic Panic conspiracism, the enemi es were servants of Satan, corrupted by his power. Most were indistinguishable from literal demons, manifestations of a “cosmic evil.” 2. The enemy in the conspiracy is seemingly unaffected by forces outside of their control and instead is seen as controlling reality itself. Conspiracy theories leave little room for happenstance or chance in their narratives. Their schemes are not foiled by bad weather or by someone betraying them. Mistakes are rare for their

• Jack Chick and the Origins of the 1980s “Satanic Panic” - JHI Blog

  The “Satanic Panic,” a movement of religious extremism that began around 1980 and ended in the mid-1990s, was part of a wider period of sweeping moral panic among the American far-Right in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. During that time, American news media outlets and law enforcement agencies received an increasing number of reports about clandestine cults that were purportedly abusing children in rituals dedicated to Satan. This was a bizarre historical phenomenon that courts, journalists, and politicians were struggling to understand. In 1980, the eccentric psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder first described this movement as part of “Satanic Ritual Abuse,” in a book that he co-wrote with former patient Michelle Smith, entitled Michelle Remembers. In it, Smith, “unlocked” a childhood

• Instance Of

  Q4167410