To see a dear friend torn, wounded, and the blood streaming down his face and body, will much affect the heart. But much more when those wounds we see, and that streaming blood we behold, accuseth us as the vile actors. To see such a one gashed and gored, though it were done by some other hand, will affect our hearts, if they be not harder than the stones, and more flinty than the rocks. But much more when our consciences tell us that we, our cruel hands, have made those wounds, and the bloody instruments by which our dearest friend was gored, were of our own forging.
Samuel Parris, sermon, Salem Village, August 6, 1693,
one year after the Salem Witch Trials. Quoted in Salem Possessed.

A gathering of witches? No, this church gathering consists of 19th century widows. Their traditional rural wife outfits look like witchware to us, explains Candace Savage in the excellent Witch: the Wild Ride from Wicca to Wiccan (Vancouver: GreyStone, 2000), because "the witch figure had been made over to look like an old-fashioned country women," and, of course, because their outfits are black, for mourning. If one wants, one can imagine demonic influences in the strangest places....
(Image from the Library of Congress)

The developed world experienced a witchhunt in the 1980s and 1990s, which started and centred in Canada and the United States. While less severe than past witch-manias, it still produced horrendous results: people were tried and in many cases imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. In most cases, the crimes never even happened. In some cases, it seems apparent that innocents remain in jail for a real crime whose perpetrator(s) remain at large. Lives and reputations were ruined. Millions of dollars were spent chasing phantoms. By the early twenty-first century, the hysteria had passed, and a significant percentage of the people who lived while these events were occurring have absolutely no idea that they ever took place.

The notion of organized Satanic cults-- groups who believe in and worship the Christian devil-- has long existed, remaining long after most Christians have accepted that the witch hunts in early modern Europe and elsewhere were the results of superstition, and persecuted innocent individuals. The modern Satanists are nevertheless supposed to share with the legendary witches the same nefarious intentions and a profound hatred of Christianity. Like the imagined covens of ages passed, they meet in secrecy, at night, and perform blasphemous rituals. The older belief in diabolical witchcraft forms the model for modern beliefs about ritually-abusive satanists.

Of course, Satan-worshippers exist-- usually short-lived, tiny cells of demonic wannabees seeking occult power and the ultimate rebel pose. Rarely have any serious crimes been traced to these pathetic dabblers.

The late Anton Szandor LaVey also founded an anti-Christian Church of Satan, but these Satanists do not literally worship (or even believe in) any supernatural deity. The difference between Satanism and Satan worship (at least, between the imagined cults of Christian urban legend and LaVey's blend of horror-movie theatrics and anti-religious teachings) are profound. Once the notion of such an organized cult exists, however, it becomes easy for believers to point to the Church of Satan, neo-Pagans, isolated wannabee Satanists, and particularly baffling crimes as manifestations of the Satanic Underground. For years, some Christians did just that, but their ideas held little currency among the mainstream. Occasionally, a horror movie or gothic novel such as Rosemary's Baby would make use of these ideas. Religious cartoonist Jack Chick has long promoted the belief in an ongoing Satanic Conspiracy in his amusing Jack T. Chick Tracts; more ponderous fundamentalist and evangelical literature did likewise. Mike Warnke had minor success with The Satan Seller in the early 1970s; the lurid book told of his former position in the cult, and his eventual deliverance by Jesus Christ. Some people were impressed. Most readers, however, failed to even notice the book or, if they did, could not fail to notice the contradictions within and the impossible timeline of Warnke's tale.

The publication of Michelle Remembers in 1977 specifically linked Satanism to child sexual abuse, a truly horrible crime which had long been a taboo subject, and was finally, in the 1970s, beginning to receive the hearing it deserved. Unfortunately, Michelle Remembers, an impossible tale of cult abuse, arrived at precisely the time to take advantage of this hearing-- and to muddy, hopelessly, the investigation of the many actual cases of child molestation. Because of the seriousness of the subject, however, many who might have ignored claims of Satanic Cults became interested in the subject.

A second book also contributed to the Panic. The Courage to Heal, a well-intentioned but profoundly flawed look at the very real problem of child sexual abuse, spread the notion that any claim by any proclaimed survivor of abuse must be believed, without question. It also stated that such abuse is often forgotten, that many people are unaware of past abuse, and that many common mental disturbances, such as depression, can be traced to forgotten incidents of molestation. Claims such as these brought some feminists into the picture. The standing posture taken was that any criticism of repressed memory and abuse claims, however grounded, was part of a backlash against gains made by women. That roughly half of those falsely accused of abuse in Satanic Panic-related cases were women seemed of little importance.

The 1980s saw a rise in evangelical and fundamentalist Christian political activism, and an attendant concern over changing mores. More people were leaving children at Daycare Centers. More people were talking about family violence. And long-standing institutions, such as reform schools, faced scandals over past sexual abuse. These social currents all had their influence on the mainstreaming of a previously fringe belief in vast, well-connected, intergenerational Satanic Cults whose ultimate aims were global control (indeed, some would-be authorities claimed the cult was already running several countries), but whose workaday practices largely consisted of child rape, cannibalism, and cheesy rituals. Many of the stories repeat slander that has, throughout history, been directed at outsider groups; the early Christians, heretical groups within Christianity, Jews, and supposed witches have all, at one time or another, been accused falsely of the very same things.

Politically-motivated therapists and police officers led the demand for prosecution whenever such claims were made. In the McMartin Preschool Trial and similar cases, the therapists actually created the abuse narrative which the children repeated in court. Talk Shows, of course, jumped on the bandwagon, and gave voice to supposed survivors, leaving the checking of facts to viewers.

As in witch-hunts of the past, trials took place with little regard for evidence or even logic. A few of the general problems with the picture developed by believers and promulgators of the Panic, however, should be noted here:

-One study revealed that the majority of ritual abuse cases were reported by less than 2% of therapists, while more than 70% of therapists never had such a case. Very few therapists, then, discovered the patients who supposedly had been abused, often using now-discredited methods and assumptions. Hypnosis, for example, makes a person more prone to fantasy, not less.

-No cases of ritual sexual abuse by Satanists exist before the panic. Compare this with the very real problem of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse in places like reform schools. Reports, usually suppressed, exist throughout the institutions' histories. Police heard accounts, but either refused to believe victims or felt the stories were exaggerated. Survivors corroborate each others' stories. Far from repressing their memories, the victims found their abuse impossible to forget. None of this is true of the Satanic Panic cases, despite the claim that these cults were in operation for generations.

-The murders reportedly committed by the cults would leave hundreds of thousands of corpses, yet we do not have anything like the number of missing persons to account for these sacrifices.

-Several supposed survivors talk of past pregnancies or torture that left scars; the corroborative physical evidence never exists.

-Ken Lanning's investigation (actually, a review of existing investigations) for the FBI found no evidence that such large-scale Satanic cults exist.

Of course, horrible cases of abuse do occur. Perhaps a belief in evil cults makes this easier to accept. We can blame it all on the obvious monsters, rather than accept the everyday and unpredictable nature of evil.

And the belief in this evil organization had evil results. In the Kern County Ritual Abuse Case, those convicted spent fourteen years in jail for crimes whose now-grown "victims" claim were fabrications created by over-zealous investigators and therapists. An obviously innocent Paul Ingram remains in jail, while the problematic (to put it mildly) convictions of the West Memphis Three have been upheld. Since three actual (if non-occult-related) murders took place in West Memphis, their innocence would also mean that a brutal killer remains free.

In 1692, Salem Village, Massachusetts experienced a notorious witch-hunt. It took only one year before the residents of Salem began to realize that the evil they feared existed only within themselves. In 1693, popular sentiment rose against the Reverend Samuel Parris, the man who had led this perverse crusade. He admitted he had believed too easily in the accusations, and put too much faith in spectral evidence (Boyer and Nissenbaum 72-73). Years have passed since the principal trials of the twentieth-century Satanic Panic. The Panic's strongest adherents cling to their beliefs, while the majority of North Americans have forgotten or remain unaware that this ever happened.

The following articles relate to the Satanic Panic/Satan Scare. I have included a few relating to the historical witchhunts, for the purpose of comparison. I have written some of the following material; much of it has been contributed by others. The controversial topic of False Memory Syndrome has been addressed by various people with differing points of view, while several people have attempted to define such things as Satan and Satanism.

Satan

Malleus Maleficarum

The Witch Hunts in Early Modern Europe

Salem Witch Trials

Satanism

Church of Satan

Mike Warnke

The Satan Seller

Crusader Comics

Michelle Remembers

The Courage to Heal

Satanic Ritual Abuse

McMartin Preschool Trial

Bennett Braun

Paul Ingram

Kern County Ritual Abuse Case

Laurel Rose Willson / Lauren Stratford / Laura Grabowski

Saskatchewan Ritual Abuse Cases

False Memory Syndrome

1992 FBI Report on Satanic Ritual Abuse

Project Monarch

West Memphis Three

Return to Non-Fiction

Sources:

Alexander, David. "Giving the Devil More than His Do." The Humanist, March/April 1990. http://users.cybercity.dk/~ccc44406/smwane/Devildue.htm

Allen, Denna and Janet Midwinter. "The Debunking of a Myth." The Mail on Sunday London, England, September 30, 1990, 41. http://users.cybercity.dk/~ccc44406/smwane/Michelle.htm

Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1974.

Carroll, Robert Todd. "Satanic Ritual Abuse." The Skeptic's Dictionary. http://skepdic.com/satanrit.html

"Government Studies on Childhood Ritual Abuse." Religious Tolerance http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_study.htm

"The Great Satanism Scare of the 80's: This is Happening in Your Town." http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~wmwines/WASP/essays/satan.html

Huston, Peter. "Washed Up, Sold Out, and Spreading Hysteria." http://users.cybercity.dk/~ccc44406/smwane/Warnke.htm

Lanning, Ken. "Investigator's Guide to Allegations of 'Ritual' Child Abuse." January 1992. http://users.cybercity.dk/~ccc44406/smwane/Lanning.htm

Mulhern, Sherrill. Interview. Jon. Trott. Cornerstone Magazine #96. 1991. http://www.cornerstonemag.com/features/iss096/mulhern.htm

Nathan, Debbie. "The Ritual Sex Abuse Hoax." The Village Voice January 12, 1990. http://www.ncrj.org/Nathan/index.html

Nathan, Debbie, Michael Snedeker, Nathan Snedeker. Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt..

Ofshe, Richard and Ethan Watters. Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria. University of California P, 1996.

"The Paul Ingram Ritual Abuse Case in Olympia, Washington." Religious Tolerance. http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_ingra.htm

Palwiuk, Eugene W. "The Satanic Panic." Originally published in Slur, 1994. http://www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/5202/SatanicPanic.htm

Pendergrast, Mike. Victims of Memory. Hinsburg, Vermont: Upper Access, 1996.

Robinson, B.A. "Bakersfield/Kern County, CA Ritual Abuse Cases." Religious Tolerance. http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_baker.htm

"Does Satanic/Sadistic Ritual Abuse Exist?" Religious Tolerance. http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_none.htm

Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York: Ballantine, 1997.

Victor, Jeffrey S. Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend. Chicago" Open Court, 1993.

A variation of this article first appeared at the Everything database