A Modern-Day Witch Hunt: The Dangerous Moral Uproar of the Satanic Panic

In the 1950s, America had been swept up in yet another desperation-fueled moral panic: McCarthyism. In short, this was an attempt to politically repress and persecute left-wing and “disloyal” individuals by instilling fear of a communist takeover.

This scramble to secure American values led to the establishment of fundamentalist Christianity, as well as the heavy politicization of religion.

Additionally, there was also a big shift towards anti-cult movements, which focused on the abuse and brainwashing inflicted upon children and adolescents.

Unfortunately, around the same time, the Church of Satan—a religion based on Ayn Rand's philosophy and practiced with ceremony, not rooted in any worship of the Devil—was founded, which seemed to validate the belief in Satanic cults.

As Ronald Reagan took the presidency in 1981, many of his policies pushed back against the social progress of the 60s and 70s, feeding into white Americans' insecurity about their social status.

With the help of the AIDS crisis and a war on drugs, Reagan easily crafted an “us versus them" narrative which formed dangerous conditions for anyone considered “other.”

It's no coincidence that the length of the Satanic Panic coincides almost perfectly with Reagan's presidential term.

The 60s and 70s were a fantastic time for people who loved horror movies. But for those who believed that movies were brainwashing children into violence, paranoia was at an all-time high.

Rosemary's Baby hit theaters in 1968, delivering a terrifying tale of a woman who becomes impregnated by the Devil at the hands of a nefarious cult.

In 1973, The Exorcist scarred audiences for life with a story about a young girl violently possessed by a demon.

The Omen followed in 1976, telling the story of a family who learns that the boy they are raising is actually the Antichrist.

But it wasn't just movies that got people on edge.

The beloved roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons first delighted players in 1974. But considering the game included spell casting, fantasy races, violence, and sexuality, it was not a game Christian groups were fans of.

In the early 80s, two tragic instances were attributed to D&D.

One of them was the disappearance and eventual suicide of 16-year-old James Dallas Egbert III. After the brilliant college student hid in the utility tunnels of his university after a bout of self-harm, he was returned to safety, only to die by a self-inflicted gunshot shortly after.

The private investigator tasked with finding him, William Dear, blamed the episode on Dungeons & Dragons, even though Egbert had a documented history of mental illness and drug addiction.

Another incident related to high school student Lee Pulling, who committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest. His mother blamed D&D, despite no evidence to suggest a link between the game and his death.

His classmates reported that Pulling had a lot of trouble fitting in, and exhibited a lot of issues that were unassociated with the roleplaying game.

But Pulling's mother insisted that the curse placed upon her son's character in his campaign was a real curse, and attempted to sue the high school principal for running the game.

She described Dungeons & Dragons as “a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination, and other teachings.”

Of course, another huge factor in the Satanic Panic was heavy metal and its counterculture. With its extreme sonic landscape and aggressive lyrics, the music genre can be scary to anyone who doesn't understand it.

The heavy metal counterculture also tended to embrace occult iconography.

But rather than attempting to form some nefarious cult, heavy metal was developed as a natural pushback against the mainstream, eschewing conformity and uplifting personal freedoms.

In 1980, a book was published by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his wife, Michelle Smith. This book, Michelle Remembers, was purportedly an autobiography that detailed child abuse rooted in Satanic rituals.

This memoir alleged that, at the age of five, Michelle was tortured for days at the hands of her own mother. At the peak of this torture, Michelle said a portal to hell opened up, bringing forth Satan himself, who was only driven away by the Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael.

Of course, there was no evidence of any such abuse on Michelle's body, but that was easily explained away—St. Mary had miraculously healed the child.

It was not so easy to dismiss the conflicting testimony from Michelle's father and two sisters, who claimed there was no truth in this so-called “memoir.”

Further debunking the book's claims was a 1955/56 yearbook from St. Margaret's School, which depicted Michelle as a healthy child in the precise month she was said to be imprisoned in a basement.

Still, with the success of the book's marketing, Pazder had coined the term “ritual abuse,” which referred to the sexual abuse or murder of individuals—particularly children—committed as a part of satanic rituals.

As such, Michelle Remembers had created the perfect template for allegations of ritual abuse that would come forward over the next decade.

Further capitalizing on the success of his book, Pazder went on to cultivate a high media profile, delivering lectures and training on ritual abuse to law enforcement. He'd consulted on over 1,000 ritual abuse cases by 1990.

Michelle Remembers was used by prosecutors as a guidebook when preparing cases against alleged Satanists.

Today, the book has long since been discredited for its use of recovered-memory therapy. This therapy uses a form of hypnosis to call forward forgotten memories in patients.

Unfortunately, this therapy very typically results in the implantation of false memories in a patient's mind. In fact, in the cases of RMT used during the Satanic Panic, patients were often recalling scenes from the horror movies mentioned above…

One very good thing came out of the early 80s: the implementation of mandatory reporting laws. These laws require adults in positions of power—doctors, teachers, police officers, etc.—to report any suspected physical or sexual abuse against a child to CPS.

With the implementation of these laws came a huge swell in investigations and public awareness. Unfortunately, with the rise in awareness came the rabid desire to prosecute, which led to coercive interview techniques.

This was especially prevalent in California, as there was an uptick in incest allegations. In many of these cases, social workers pushed fathers to confess in exchange for merciful plea bargains.

At the same time, odd stories began to crop up in some children's testimonies, detailing horrific physical and sexual abuse from caregivers all in the name of organized rituals using Satanic symbols. Adults also began to remember childhood instances of such abuse in their own psychotherapy sessions.

In 1983, one preschool became the face of these allegations gone awry.

One parent, Judy Johnson, reported to the police that her young son had been sodomized by her estranged husband, as well as daycare teacher Ray Buckey. This allegation arose after Johnson noticed her son exhibit painful bowel movements.

Some accounts say that Johnson's son disputed her suggestion that he had been molested by his preschool teachers. Other reports claim that he confirmed her story of abuse.

The accused, Buckey, was the grandson of the preschool's founder, Virginia McMartin, and the son of administrator Peggy McMartin Buckey. The family would be pummeled with far more accusations in the coming days.

Johnson further alleged that those running the daycare participated in sexual activity with animals. She also claimed that, "Peggy drilled a child under the arms," and, “Ray flew in the air.”

Though Buckey was questioned, he could not be prosecuted due to a lack of evidence. But the police sent roughly 200 parents of children at the McMartin school a letter warning them that their children might have been abused.

This missive urged the parents to question their kids as to any misconduct that might have occurred at the preschool.

The Children's Institute International then interviewed hundreds of children using highly suggestive techniques. This resulted in abuse claims from 360 children.

Of the children who alleged abuse, only 41 of them testified in the grand jury and pretrial hearings. Less than a dozen testified at the actual trials.

Clinical psychologist Michael P. Maloney reviewed videotapes of the children's interviews and found the techniques to be problematic and coercive. He stated that many of the accusations were generated by the examiner, and most of the statements came from adults, rather than children.

Many of the children interviewed were initially resistant to implicate anyone in any sort of abuse.

Beyond the coercion, many of the allegations were frankly bizarre. Some claimed that, in addition to being molested, they witnessed witches fly, traveled in a hot-air balloon, and were taken through secret underground tunnels.

One child even identified their abuser as Chuck Norris.

Two trials were conducted for the McMartin preschool case. The first began on July 13, 1987 and lasted until January 18, 1990. The second only lasted from May 7, 1990 to July 27, 1990.

In these trials, Virginia McMartin, her daughter Peggy McMartin Buckey, her grandchildren Ray and Peggy Ann Buckey, and teachers Mary Ann Jackson, Betty Raidor, and Babette Spitler were charged with 321 counts of child abuse involving 48 children.

Throughout the trial, the authors of Michelle Remembers met with the children and parents involved in the case.

For three years, the defense withheld the fact that the original accuser, Judy Johnson struggled with  paranoid schizophrenia. Also withheld was the fact that Johnson's son never identified Ray Buckey as one of his abusers.

After nearly a decade in court, the trial resulted in no convictions against any of the accused. But due to the highly publicized nature of the case, their lives would never be the same.

Of course, while fictionalized tragedy got people in an uproar, it was easy for some individuals to connect dots that weren't there after one very real horror unfolded in 1969.

The Tate-LaBianca murders, orchestrated by Charles Manson, were the necessary spark to light the fuse of the Satanic Panic.

While the Manson Family certainly wasn't the first cult in American history, their brutal deeds were impossible to ignore, and left a mark on culture—and pop culture—that is still extremely recognizable today.

Manson's cult practiced communal living and experimentation with psychedelic drugs, drawing in those who were attracted to the period's counterculture. Unfortunately, this served as a blueprint for society's distrust toward “unconventional” lifestyles.

As Manson radicalized his followers, borrowing aspects of his philosophy from the Process Church of the Final Judgment, which taught that Satan and Jesus would reconcile at the end of the world to bring judgment upon humanity.

The Manson family believed they were reincarnations of the original Christians, and that an apocalyptic race war was on the horizon.

On August 9th, 1969, four members of the Manson Family—Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian—committed the horrific murders of Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski,  Steven Parent, and actress Sharon Tate, along with her unborn child.

The next night, the same group, with the addition of Leslie Van Houten,  Steve "Clem" Grogan, and Manson himself, committed two more murders. The victims were a couple: Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

These awful killings struck lasting fear in the hearts of Americans for several reasons.

First of all, these murders took place inside the victims' homes. Rich, well-protected homes, at that, giving the impression that nowhere was safe.

Second, this attack was not only perpetrated against a notable figure, but a pregnant notable figure. This ensured not only heavy coverage in the media, but a focus on the tragedy of losing society's most vulnerable.

Finally, the Tate-LaBianca murders were exceptionally bloody and gruesome. Furthermore, they were carried out in a ritualistic nature.

This led to concerned and paranoid individuals looking for similar patterns in every tragedy for decades to come.

Who were the victims of the Satanic Panic? That's an easy answer: everyone.

In broad strokes, no one benefited from the rampant censorship and forced moralization that took place in response to the Satanic Panic. There were blatant attempts to repress self-expression and guide society toward a specific and distinct direction.

But there were certainly more tangible, tragic victims of the moral panic.

We've already covered the McMartin preschool trial, and the ways in which reputations were forever tarnished by a rush of false accusations. But while there were no convictions in that trial, the same cannot be said for similar tales.

One specific case occurred in 1991. In Oak Hill, Texas, Frances and Dan Keller, the proprietors of a small daycare, were accused of repeatedly committing satanic ritual abuse against young children.

Among the accusations were allegations that the Kellers forced children to drink blood-laced Kool-Aid, have sex with adults on camera, and participate in the dismemberment of animals.

After a six-day trial, the Kellers were sentenced to 48 years in prison. There was no real physical evidence, and the child that had sparked the investigation came out saying no abuse had taken place.

The Travis County district attorney's office finally acknowledged that the initial trial was unfair, and gave the Kellers another shot in 2013. After re-evaluating the facts, all charges were dropped in 2017.

Beyond falsely imprisoned educators, a major critique of the Satanic Panic is that it overshadowed actual victims of child abuse. While people flocked to protect children from satanic ritual abuse—perceived to be the worst threat in the “hierarchy” of abuse—other forms of abuse didn't seem to merit such intervention.

Furthermore, in the wake of the collapse of the Satanic Panic, child testimonies lost credibility to some.

Still, when discussing the tragedies of the Satanic Panic, there is perhaps one case that stands out as the most famous of all: the West Memphis Three.

On May 5th, 1993, three eight-year-old boys were reported missing in West Memphis, Arkansas. The next day, the bodies of the boys were discovered after draining a local creek.

The circumstances of their deaths were horrific. They had been stripped naked and hogtied with their own shoelaces, and one of the victims had suffered mutilation to his genitals.

Three suspects immediately emerged in this sickening tragedy: 17-year-old Jessie Misskelley Jr., 16-year-old Jason Baldwin, and 18-year-old Damien Echols. Baldwin and Echols had prior arrests for vandalism and shoplifting, while Misskelley was known for fighting at school.

Both Misskelley and Echols were high school dropouts, but Baldwin was doing well in school and exhibiting a high artistic talent. 

Though Echols and Baldwin were good friends, finding common ground over music and a growing discomfort with the conservatism of their town, neither of the boys was very well acquainted with Misskelley.

Echols had a lot of things working against him. In addition to being from a poor family, he was also severely mentally ill, coming to be diagnosed with grandiose and persecutory delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, incapacitating mood swings, and more.

As the police felt that the murders had a cultish overtone, they turned to Echols as a suspect for his interest in the occult. During a polygraph test, deception was indicated when Echols insisted he played no part in the crime.

The authorities continued to heavily question Echols, but also turned their attention to Misskelley, who was questioned alone despite being a minor with a reported IQ of 72. Misskelley's interrogation lasted for 12 hours, and though he said he did not understand his Miranda rights and that he was “scared of the police,” the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled his coerced confession to be voluntary.

No physical evidence was ever found tying any of the teens to the crime.

At his trial, Misskelley was found guilty of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life plus 40 years in prison.

At their own trial, Baldwin and Echols were found guilty on three counts of murder. Baldwin was sentenced to life in prison, while Echols was sentenced to death.

Since their sentencing, a great deal of criticism has come out about the way the police handled the investigation. First and foremost, the bodies had been moved before they could be examined by a coroner, leaving them to be exposed to extra decay from sunlight and insects.

Officials took too long to drain the creek after their initial findings, leading to a belief that they may have missed substantial evidence in the water. Additionally, there was a small amount of blood found at the scene that was never tested.

Due to a lack of blood at the crime scene, many believed the site where they found the bodies was not the actual place where the murders took place, though it was treated as such.

There were additional complaints about failing to control the disclosure of information, and leaking facts to suspects and the press. It was also alleged that police records during this investigation were, to say the least, disorderly.

To further bring the validity of the teens' convictions into question, it was discovered in 2008 that there was jury misconduct. The jury foreman on the Echols-Baldwin trial, Kent Arnold, had spoken with an attorney about the case before deliberations, and advocated for the guilt of the boys, sharing inadmissible evidence with his fellow jurors.

In 2011, the West Memphis Three at last faced some relief—though it was not through exoneration. Despite several attempts to secure a new trial, the boys were finally released from prison after accepting an Alford plea.

Their plea deal stipulated that the three men could not pursue civil action against the state for wrongful imprisonment.

Three innocent boys spent 18 years in prison at the hands of a moral hysteria. To make matters even worse, three murdered children never saw justice.

In fact, the police negligence may have led to more harm. We may never know.

Though the Satanic Panic started on American soil, the terror could not be contained. Before long, the paranoia and false memories began to spread to other regions.

By the late 1980s, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia began to see reports of satanic ritual abuse in children.

In 1986, Australia held the largest symposium on child abuse in history, featuring talks from several notable satanic ritual abuse advocates.

Saskatchewan, Canada had their own highly publicized trial in 1992 with the Martensville satanic sex scandal, which shared a great deal in common with the McMartin preschool trial.

In 2021 and 2022, reports by Swiss journalists Stämpfli and Robin Rehmann revealed that conspiracy theories related to the Satanic Panic were still held by several groups in Switzerland, including high-ranking police officers and a senior physician of the largest private psychiatric clinic group in the country.

As dramatically as the beginning of the Satanic Panic had come about, the end came with much less fanfare. It left with a fizzle, rather than a bang.

Between 1992 and 1995, much of the public had changed their perception of the panic and its related accusations of satanic ritual abuse. The moralistic phenomenon was hard to keep alive when there was a wide failure of criminal prosecutions against alleged abusers.

Additionally, an increasing number of scholars and reporters came forward questioning the validity of the accusations. And while criminal prosecutions had been failing, there were a growing number of successful lawsuits against mental health professionals, sowing distrust.

In 1995, an HBO-made-for-TV movie framed Ray Buckey as a victim rather than a predator, marking a public shift in opinion.

That same year, Geraldo Rivera apologized for his coverage of alleged cults, which aired with a sensational response in 1987.

In 1996, renowned astrophysicist and astrobiologist Carl Sagan penned a chapter in his final book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, critiquing the use of recovered memories in cases of alien abductions and satanic ritual abuse.

History is often doomed to be repeated, no matter how prepared we may think we are.

While you may be inclined to ask if we're headed toward another moral panic, the proper question might be, “What signs show we're already at the start of one?”

In 2017, 4chan saw the development of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory movement. This group has taken up many of the same pillars as the Satanic Panic, though instead of focusing the fear-mongering on daycare centers, they place the blame on Hollywood, Democratic politicians, and other liberal influences.

Though QAnon may be a zany joke to some people, there are other cultural indicators of a moral panic.

For one thing, there is an increase in censorship, from younger generations demanding more sexually conservative media to a recent uptick in banned books across schools and libraries.

But the biggest red flag we have to look out for as a society is what we might call “other-ism”.

When politicians or social groups attempt to target a specific group or culture, deeming them a threat to our way of life, it's a breeding ground for violence and hysteria.

In the 80s, the AIDS crisis, the war on drugs, and a heavy metal counter culture were an easy jumping-off point for fear. Today, it may well be transgender activism, arguments on reproductive rights, and tensions over medical coverage.

A moral panic is born of a common difference in opinion. It is bred through the vilification of opposition.

So the next time you're faced with something you don't understand, ask yourself, what are you really afraid of?