Notes about Sexuality and Religion

by Dr Justin Sledge

Starting in the early 1980’s the Satanic Panic ignited in the United States before spreading through the world. Here law enforcement, psychiatrists, social workers and occult ‘experts’ uncovered a vast satanic conspiracy which predated upon children at daycares, infiltrated heavy metal music, lured in teenagers through Dungeons and Dragons all organized by a grand network of satanic covens. These claims resulted in constant bullying for social non-conformists, hundreds of arrests, prosecutions, compromised guilty verdicts along with accusations which ruined lives and livelihoods for many more. The Satanic Panic is even more shocking when considering that no evidence has come to light in over 40 years to substantiate these claims. Feeding on centuries of demonological lore set into the social and economic degradation of the last quarter of the 20th century, the Satanic Panic continues to have a decisive social impact. Join me as I dive deep into the origins and development of the Satanic Panic and how it nearly destroyed my life.

Transcript

through the 1980s and 90s a shocking social panic ignited in the united states before spreading through the rest
of the world here law enforcement psychiatrists social workers and occult
experts uncovered a vast satanic conspiracy which predated upon hundreds
if not thousands of children at daycare’s infiltrated heavy metal music
it lured in teenagers through the role-playing game dungeons and dragons and all of this was thought to be
organized by a grand network of satanic covens presided over by shadowy
forces this satanic network organized the worst imaginable crimes all in the interest of
furthering their own power through allegiance to the great rebel angel
the panic filled lurid paperbacks with tales of satanic ritual abuse
it populated daytime talk shows with imagery of inverted pentagrams painted in
dank basements and was the topic of top psychological conferences
in support of the rise of religiously motivated occult experts to advise law
enforcement all of which resulted in constant bullying for social non-conformists
hundreds of arrests prosecution guilty verdicts and long prison time even death
sentences along with accusations which ruined people’s lives and livelihoods
for hundreds and thousands the results of the satanic panic are
even more shocking when considering that no evidence and even evidence to the
contrary of such claims has come to light in the now 40 years that have passed
feeding on centuries of demonological lore set into the social and economic
degradation of the last quarter of the 20th century the satanic panic had a
decisive cultural impact elements of which appear to be re-emerging in the
new religious movement of the qiunon and the popularity of the character of
eddie munson in the recent season of stranger things because in the 80s and 90s you either
knew an eddie munson or you were an eddie munson the satanic panic also very nearly
destroyed my life if you’re interested in magic hermetic
philosophy alchemy kabbalah or the history of the occult make sure to subscribe here to esoterica
and check out my numerous other contents on topics and esotericism including curated playlists on various
topics also if you want to support this work of providing accessible scholarly and free
content on topics and esotericism here on youtube for free i hope you maybe consider taking a look
at my patreon maybe consider a one-time donation to the project or you could even use the super thanks option down
below the video now let’s explore the satanic panic
its ancient origins and its survival i’m dr justin sledge and welcome to
esoterica where we explore the arcane in history philosophy
and religion [Music]
[Music]
hegemony or dominant social power comes with a range of prices one of which is
anxiety even with christian hegemony established in medieval europe institutional religious power
experienced a constant anxiety of heresy apostasy and heterodoxy
while christianity was meant to supersede judaism and be the final revelation until the second coming of
christ the continued existence of the jewish people seems like an indictment
of that very supersession and the rise and success of islam
an indictment of the inevitability of that christian endgame
not only was jewish survival itself theologically vexing
but the jew increasingly became more and more than just an other of christianity
but a very near enemy of christendom itself
here the genealogy of conspiracy mutated as a weapon against the jews from
anti-judaism to anti-semitism hellenistic diatribes against jewish superstition took the form of claims
that jews engaged in annual human sacrifice the pagan romans had spread
rumors that the early christians engaged in incestuous orgies and ritual
cannibalism in their nocturnal superstitious rituals among the tombs of
the dead these rumors were then co-opted ironically enough by early christians to
slander their religious competitors those that we now call the gnostics
by the 12th century these accusations further mutated and began to appear in
england that christian children were being ritually murdered by the jews
in the early version of this narrative in an international group of jews decided which christian would be killed
as a part of rituals to return the jews to their ancestral homelands other versions of this have that the
killing was done as a ritual mockery of the torture and execution of jesus the
mature version of this narrative involves the murder of a christian child typically in order to use their blood in
the preparation of the ritual matzah bread for passover pesach while the institutional church
to its credit did attempt to prevent extrajudicial mob violence this conspiracy theory in the subsequent
programs would begin in england and spread quickly to the rest of the continent
evidence for such international ritual killings by jews when rarely produced
was you guessed it inevitably extracted through unimaginable torture
now known as the blood libel this would be the first truly international
conspiracy theory which when combined with the elaborated theory of witchcraft
would form the mythological core of the satanic panic to come centuries later
though the blood libel against jewish communities would continue through the centuries till now
somehow unabated a new mutation in the q anon new religious movement that claims
that political and social elites sometimes globalists which is just a riff on the old international jew canard
this idea that they are extracting adrenochrome from children in forms of ritual satanic abuse this is simply a
contemporary variant of this very ancient anti-semitic conspiracy theory
the theological anxieties mentioned earlier were met with political and social instability and into those
dreadful margins came war and inquisition even against fellow christians
here came the persecution of heterodox christians such as the waldensians whose insistence on radical apostolic poverty
threatened the entirety of the church aristocracy it was horrifically extended into the
wars to root out what the medievals called the albigensians or the manikins who we now call the kathars of southern
france the area around languedoc upon whom the same old slanders of incestuous
orgies and cannibalism would be heaped the massacre at besier in 1209 claimed
the lives of thousands with the so-called heretics being indistinguishable from the rest of the
population one crusader is said to have remarked caideos
dominos them all the lord will know his own
tens of thousands of innocent people were murdered and subjected to trial and
torture during the war in the 20-year long inquisition that followed
you may be surprised to learn that an emerging scholarly position now holds that no such cathars at least as an
institutional rival to the medieval church ever even existed
a tiny few of those tortured and massacred were perhaps heterodox christians maybe duelists of a certain
kind though yet they were christian while the rest were simply
regular medieval people caught in a religious territorial dispute that cost them their lives
the kathars were as the emergent position argues invented in the minds of inquisitioners
and then further discovered in the tortured confessions of those accused
as such finally in the theological economic and social anxieties of the period following
the black death emerge a new kind of heretic the witch
in this theory what is now called the elaborated theory of witchcraft as developed in the minds of inquisitors
and jurists theologians and philosophers of the late medieval world and to some degree the early modern period held that
a new woman-led heretical sorcery sect had appeared in europe marked by entering
into a pact or covenant with the devil and thus fundamentally this was apostasy
from christianity to secure this covenant there were sexual relations with the devil and
various demons aerial flight for the purposes of attending a sabbat or a
synagogue of satan which again a little anti-semitism in there which is presided over by satan himself at which point the
initiates enter into said pact typically by signing their name in blood followed
by incestuous and promiscuous sex remember that back from earlier the general practice of maleficent magic the
slaughter of fetuses and babies remember that whole eaten babies part cannibalism and various means for preventing human
beings from procreating whose aim the entire aim of this heretical sex
so-called was to undermine christendom as part of the devil’s ongoing war with god
in fact by the mid-15th century this theory had become positively apocalyptic and was arguing
that the new witch heresy was actually the final attempt on the part of the devil to forestall his impending doom
by sending human beings down a spiral of sin and crime as a kind of final outrage
against god but also the way of delaying the apocalypse regardless the elaborated
theory of witchcraft as it is called now while it varied from region to region or writer to writer had pretty much
coalesced by about 1500 and thus set the stage for
the frenzied persecutions which would follow resulting in the deaths of around 40 to
60 000 people mostly women up to around 1750. that’s not counting the people
simply accused imprisoned tortured stripped of their lands reputations and their human dignity remains unknown
no one knows how many people that was but again what’s clear from the evidence of hundreds of years of scholarship is
that virtually all of those people subject to the wish trials they were just christians
and not an international conspiracy of satanic witches or pagan survivals from antiquity
they were just innocent christians again with the witch like the gnostic or
the cathar they were a fantasy of demonologists reinforced by confessions had
at torture the ascendancy of the mercantile banking classes and the rise of the
enlightenment with its focus on reason evidence-based critical thinking the rejection of dogma
individual rights and the shift toward materialist naturalism the separation of religion and politics a la spinoza did
much to stop the objective spread of these mythological tropes and the
judicial and extrajudicial violence that had accompanied them for centuries
jews would eventually gain civil rights religious difference was eventually tolerated and the presumption of
innocence of the accused meant that the procedures and evidence would determine guilt with
torture finally finally disappearing from jurisprudence
officially and unofficially of course none of this happened perfectly even up
to this day but in light of what i’ve just discussed it’s at least substantial progress and
any kind of post-modern cynicism about progress and meta-narratives they can be
damned in my opinion that’s real progress but there’s no denying that the
mythological substratum the religious or social other as enemy the international
conspiracy against christendom or the west and the specifically satanic elements of
sorcery and child sacrifice that mythological substratum remained
more or less totally intact as a kind of meme unit and as post-world war ii
america began to spiral into social political and economic crisis
it would re-emerge as a satanic panic of course the first great other in the
post-war period was communism and the house of committee on un-american activities and senator
joseph mccarthy laid the public groundwork for wide scale conspiratorial
thinking and along with the second red scare came additional conspiratorial
comorbidities as i call them such as the idea that fluorinated water was used for mind control or that the polio vaccine
was a red plot to weaken the population for a future communist invasion
yeah the anti-vaxxers they were also anti-polio vaccine because it
made the reds yeah social and economic conditions would continue to weaken through the 1960s
which saw the first explosions of the hippie subculture widespread experimentation with drugs and other
mind-altering substances the rise in popularity of the new religious movement along with the disaster of the vietnam
war greatly weakening the idea of american world supremacy the gay liberation movement the rise of the
civil rights movement and the increasing stagnation of the us economy
this period would also include the founding of the non-theist but highly publicized church of satan the tate
labianca murders framed as a cult killing by the prosecution meant to induce a race war though that narrative
has been subject to intense and reasonable doubt along with the general occult revival
prominently featuring the religious thought of folks like alistair crowley along with the fertility nature-based
new religious movement of wicca neither of which neither of which are in the least bit
satanic nor linked with any criminal activity
the 1973-1975 recession and the world oil crisis would signal the real stagnation
to come in fact real wage growth in the u.s has been basically flat given
inflation for this entire period up until now along with the 1980 through 82 recession
this would see the worst u.s unemployment since the great depression that figure by the way the one from the
1980 to 1982 recession that’s only been matched this year in
2022 we are in a recession about like that no matter what anyone says further and in light of this real and
perceived degradation of the social religious and economic stability of the us would see the rise of the moral
majority this was a major foray of evangelical christians into politics as
a block really greatly fostering a conservative reaction from the local social layer to
the american presidency by the early 1980s it is into this complex social economic
political and religious matrix of real perceived u.s degeneration in the final decades of the 20th century would come
ancient legends of cultic sorcery witchcraft ritual abuse human sacrifice and an
international network of satanists as a means to make sense of just that degeneration
the satanic panic would truly emerge in 1980 with the publication of michelle
remembers by the canadian psychiatrist lawrence poster just as a content warning the following
couple sections detail the disturbing claims of so-called satanic ritual abuse
in this decisively important volume pastor’s patient and eventual wife
wife can you marry ethics would come to recount how she was
subject to what is now known as satanic ritual abuse from 1954 to 1955 in
victoria british columbia michelle would allegedly uncover lurid
details of torture sexual assault child and human sacrifice a horrifying body
modification including having horns and a tail sewn onto her body before being
ripped off being put into a cage with snakes being covered with various kinds of insects
etc etc this satanic cult led by her own father allegedly was even once presided
over by satan himself before michelle was saved by the miraculous intervention of the virgin mary and
and jesus the memories of this horrifying abuse were repressed until being later unlocked through the rather
unconventional unethical therapy of dr pastner
including her therapeutic conversion to catholicism his religion by the way
during one of her therapy sessions despite the numerous and horrible
details no evidence has ever cooperated any of the claims made in this book her father
denies such abuse ever took place her sisters who are never actually mentioned in the book danielle deny any such tales
there’s no record of her missing school to endure some of the rituals which in her telling of it went on for weeks at a
time and of course there are no spikes in missing babies or children during that period and the gathering that she
describes of hundreds of satanists in the forest would be pretty hard to disguise
further the sessions themselves seem infused with leading questions including details that pastel may have actually
picked up during his time in west africa and some of the rituals that he witnessed there along with the standard
set of legends that survived from the middle ages in fact there seems to be good evidence that demonological lore is
being interpolated back into some of these narratives michelle’s account would be featured in people magazine
prior to publication a very popular magazine it’s like the kind of thing at the grocery store aisle where it
attracted intense public attention something about this narrative grabbed the general population’s
imagination thus even prior to publication pastor gained a hundred thousand dollar advance in the 19 late
70s late early 80s on the hardback version and another 242 thousand dollars for the eventual
paperback publication with both pasder and michelle who despite now both being catholic divorced
their previous spouses to marry one another they became overnight occult experts and
began appearing on a host of television shows to promote their book
and by extension promote the idea of satanic ritual abuse
without doubt michelle remembers became the standard narrative that served as the foundation for become a cottage
industry of memory recovery practices in the emergent psychiatric communication network something that had a kind of
beta testing in some of the recover memory stuff from the ufo phenomenon among this network of trained
professionals would spread the idea of repressed memories containing narratives of widespread satanic ritual abuse
these narratives then would go on to be publicized often on national television only for new cases
to emerge as a now feedback loop began to develop and deepen
confirmation bias leading questions questionable forms of therapy and the administration of psychotropic drugs a
total misunderstanding of the nature of memory social pressure not to question
survivors of this and group think within the very psychiatric communication
network even in academic settings surprise surprise group think in
academia not only perpetuated both the notion of widespread ritual satanic
abuse but also legitimated the accounts as confirmed by phds and licensed doctors
without even a thought of recourse to you know corroborating some of these claims with
this thing called evidence and ignoring always incontrovertible evidence to the
contrary the michelle remembers virus was now loose within the psychiatric and
psychological worlds and if it could spread an infect among university-trained doctors
you can only imagine what it was about to do at every other layer of society
among the earliest level panics occurred unsurprisingly near the location of the alleged events
of michelle remembers that’s the area around victoria british columbia in 1982
just two years after the publication of the book where reports emerged from an anonymous child abuse tip line that a
baby would be kidnapped and sacrificed by a satanic cult on june 14th the threat which otherwise sounds well
it sounds completely crazy was taken seriously probably because of the impact
of michelle remembers and armed guards were placed in maternity wards of local hospitals
rumors of animal sacrifice began to fly with animal remains found in a nearby
forest taken as evidence because you know animals never die in the forest
and things begin to get worse from there provincial level government alerted social workers to report any babies that
may be in danger again a very vague warning as if social workers aren’t already looking for babies that are
maybe endangered this community panic fueled by local and national reporting began to spread all
through the united states and canada by 1983 a mother suffering from severe
mental illness accused the son of the owner of her child’s daycare of sexual abuse what followed was the mcmartin
preschool trial one of the most expensive public trials in u.s history
by 1983 seven people were charged with nearly 350 counts of child abuse based on
accusations of children informed by leading questions resulting not only in
abuse allegations but also depictions of witches flying through the air rides and hot air
balloons secret tunnels beneath the daycare where the abuse is said to have taken place the participation of the abuse by naked
people from hollywood orgies at car washes and even airports secret pipes where the children would be
flushed down to be abused before being cleaned up by their parents sounds like
super mario brothers even action star chuck norris chuck norris was accused of
participating in this abuse the trials lasted for seven years they cost 15 million dollars
they they rendered no real evidence and resulted in no convictions it maimed the
lives and reputations of those involved it traumatized those children and their parents
so much so that there are still people out there looking for secret tunnels after the
dust has settled all these years this wing of the satanic panic would ignite a wave of satanic ritual
accusations against over a hundred different day care providers some of which
are still serving present sentences on basically nothing evidence and
inflammatory nonsense the effect of all this would only further entrench the very social
problems that gave rise to the panic in the first place in fear of the prosecution many child care workers
simply shuddered their facilities thus transferring that burden of child care onto women
especially working-class women who were already experiencing the worst of the brunt of the recession
that was fueling many of the elements that gave rise to the panic this again further entrenched the feedback loop in
the social level that was giving rise to the panic in the first place by 1984 we
see the first appearance of an idea of a teenage devil worshiping cult appear linked with nocturnal rituals which were
probably just late night legend trips whereby youths go to local locations often graveyards or bridges
in the folklore telling and reenacting cycle by 1985 this trope that the
satanic cultists would target blonde blue-eyed children on halloween now introduced a specifically racial
component into the panic combined with the emergent stranger danger narrative that was taking hold in the 1980s
that same year local law enforcement publicly speculated there are at least 1500 secret satanists active in ohio
alone and that many of them are homosexuals now introducing homophobia into the
panic with the gay community already in the midst of the aids epidemic an
epidemic already left to rage unchecked because of institutional homophobia
on may 16 1985 the popular nationally syndicated show 2020 ran a segment
entitled the devil worshipers greatly accelerating the national spread of the
panic by now local media had reached the national level and the feedback loop
deepened daytime tv shows would act as a kind of social multiplier effect with the most
important being appearances on the oprah winfrey show and the sally jesse raphael show which would feature largely women
recounting alleged abuse at the hands of the satanic cultists and those featuring accounts of alleged satanic cults
throughout the entire country on the geraldo riviera show with the november 19th 1987 show proving absolutely
decisive in the history of the satanic panic followed up on the next year with three
three back-to-back episodes in the october of 1988 driving home the topics of teenage
satanism or satanic breeders babies for sacrifice and devil worship
while geraldo would eventually apologize in 1995 for the devastating impacts
these rating seeking episodes would have they would likely prove to be the
catalyst for some of the most intense periods of the panic costing many their dignity
and even their freedom by the late 1980s the satanic panic had spread deeply into the united states in
the first cases of daycare workers and teenagers would begin to appear in the united kingdom the netherlands and
australia and beyond the satanic panic by the mid to late 80s had spread well
beyond the borders of the united states and canada who were the victims in the satanic
panic of course the first and foremost were vulnerable children
these kids were the first victims of priming a form of leading questions and
indirect suggestion by which the answers the answers to all of this was satanic ritual abuse would be fed to those
children and the questioning arranged to reinforce the answers were satanic
ritual abuse of course children are highly impressionable and highly imaginative and once suspected by social workers or
religious zealots or law enforcement it was only a matter of time before it was discovered through the process of
priming and the leading questions a technique actually developed all the way back by the inquisitors of the middle
ages it was so effective it often didn’t even need torture though there can be no denying that
leading children to induce such horrors as their own abuse and then implanting that abuse as a form of memory then
convincing their parents of such abuse in the process of prosecuting the alleged abusers
actually only deepened and widened the circle of trauma further were the daycare providers
themselves many of these people were lifetime professionals with a deep love
of children being accused of horrible abuse ruined their lives emotionally financially
legally and socially further victims were people suffering from mental illness whose very mental
health professionals manipulated them through a range of therapies which
included deepening their trauma by planting false memories of satanic ritual abuse as noted earlier many of
these people never recovered with the professional and ethical failures of the psychological and psychiatric community
never fully accounted for at least in the literature the next victims were those who stood at
the edges of the local social systems and were made to be the scapegoats as a satanic panic fell upon their community
the real and perceived social degeneration of religious social moral and economic life especially in the
hardest hit working classes communities of the early 1980s required some social explanation
the rise of the reagan and thatcher administrations were socio-political attempts to return to the
glory hollywood years of a couple generations prior but social conditions actually continued
to slip in those hardest hit communities this pent-up frustration anxiety and rage
needed it needed an outlet unfortunately that outlet would be those to blame within
their own communities for turmoil especially in the event of a shocking crime or unexpected tragedy that would
push that community over the edge in fact a wide range of community disruptions would trigger a panic and
those targeted were usually those at the social margins very often the initial targets would be teenagers that
willfully rebelled against an otherwise increasingly conservative social system
that rebellion took the form of alternative clothing and hairstyles listening to emergent heavy metal music
often imbued with mythological and maybe sometimes satanic imagery the emergingly
popular form of horror films rejecting or rebelling against standard religious
i.e protestant christian norms including adopting alternative religious beliefs
or even pseudo satanism or just rejecting social norms and engaging in
much parodied nerdy hobbies in the 1980s especially the fantasy role-playing game
dungeons and dragons heavy metal music would be accused of intentionally hiding satanic messages
through the process of back masking or subliminal messages whereby its listeners would be induced to murder
suicide or to delve deeper into the occult and satanism both ozzy osbourne and judas priest
would be sued on these very grounds with the defendants winning in both of those cases
not that actual evidence means anything in the midst of a panic like this they were
public burnings of records and cassettes deemed satanic the role-playing game dungeons and
dragons would be brought to prominence by the tragic suicide of james dallas egbert iii whose death was associated
with the game though without any substantiating evidence whatsoever this was again reinforced by the made
for tv movie starring a young tom hanks mazes and monsters which again associated fantasy role-playing games
with dangerous psychosis this effect would be amplified through further suicides associated with
dungeons and dragons unfortunately with the founding of bad or bothered about dungeons and dragons
which would be joined by the rising tide of evangelicals who further argued that d induced its players to anti-christian
pagan occult behavior as a kind of gateway into the occult and satanism
more generally of course actual social psychological data
indicates no connection between games of any kind and violence or criminality and that
cooperative games like dungeons and dragons and other rpgs generally
actually contra indicate antisocial behavior regardless it would be largely male
teens sometimes delinquents are those even suffering from mental illness often associated with heavy metal music
role-playing games recreational drug use nocturnal folklore adventures and
interest in alternative philosophies or spiritualities often from poor or
working class or otherwise marginal families that would bear the brunt of most of the accusations where the
satanic panic entered their communities often accusations would be
mere rumors which of course still harmed reputations but could also include the
threat and reality of mob violence which happened a good bit in the 1980s snap
judgments and arrests and even convictions for serious crime almost always fueled by publicity and outrage
lack of proper legal defense despite an otherwise wholesale lack of any substantiating
evidence linking these young people to actual crimes even when the charges were eventually
dropped even if it took decades the damage had been done with the media intensely focusing on the lurid alleged
satanic induced crime but hardly mentioning when these cases were dropped and the people were acquitted
of any wrongdoing this left their reputations and lives and shambles often
the perpetrators of the satanic panic were like most moral crusaders in history convinced of the existence of a
profound evil preying upon their community and committed to rooting it out by any means necessary
history rarely gives us purely good victims nor purely evil perpetrators and
the satanic panic bears this out psychiatrists were seeking to help their
patients social workers were looking after the safety of children local news was trying to report the news
as they saw it law enforcement was seeking to protect their communities and religious zealots or occult experts sought themselves
engaged with battle against profoundly evil forces in
their midst parents thought to protect their kids and prosecutors tried to ensure that no
crimes had taken place and to adequately punish those they thought had
every social system uses shame and bullying to enforce non-legal social norms sadly
the same could be said of the inquisitors of the middle ages and the witch hunters of the early modern period
evil as han aaron has shown us is the banality often of just doing nothing following the crowd
following your orders being informed by outrage and taking pleasure in
scapegoating revenge rather than the critical examination of what
actual evidence says it’s unpopular to introduce a strong anti-rumor social policy including
counter-explanations for what’s happening other than indulging in bizarre satanic cult narratives
public calls for critical thinking are always unpopular and slow socially
unpopular form of justice through reason and the refusal to allow religious fury
to shape the secular processes of civil society law enforcement and the due process of
the courts one of the most dangerous perpetrators aside from the mass media during the
satanic panics were the self-appointed satanism or occult experts these people had
no academic training in history or religious studies or much other for that matter they would enter into communities often
following a tragedy of some kind only to stoke the flames of practically word for
word medieval legends and myths the panic would quickly ensure trapping
those in its snare further destroying this very social fabric that facilitated
the panic in the first place with these so-called experts well on
their way some of them handsomely paid for what they had just done
well before the dust settled and lives were ruined to my knowledge not a single of these modern day witch hunters were
ever sued or prosecuted yet another failure of justice during the satanic panic
as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s the major wave of the panic was coming to an
end especially in larger metropolitan areas however in suburban areas especially working class and deeply
religious communities especially in the american south local panics would continue to emerge
through the mid and late 1990s and that’s where the satanic panic very nearly destroyed
my life on october 1st 1997 i was 16 years old and a young man an
acquaintance of mine dropped a pile of papers in front of me instructing me to give them to a mutual friend
the top page mentioned very clearly the word murder and was also
clearly a last will earlier that morning he had committed matricide and then re-entered school
later that morning murdered his ex-girlfriend another young woman sitting near her and then began shooting
randomly into the crowd injuring seven other people this was all two years before the
horrors of columbine and the wave of mass shootings that have followed
less than a week later six other young men including myself were arrested and charged with being part of a murderous
satanic conspiracy in the weeks and months that followed one by one the charges were reduced and
then dropped eventually the perpetrator of the crimes was put on trial and while
demonic influence featured prominently during the trials although wasn’t there in the original confession at all
there was no real mention of the satanic conspiracy any longer in december of night nearly a year and a
half after being accused myself the last of the charges were dropped when a grand jury came to the conclusion
there wasn’t enough evidence to charge a crime no evidence in fact in that exculpatory evidence long then actually
known to the prosecution contra indicated any wrongdoing on my part
certainly i made mistakes in the aftermath of this shooting taking that bundle of writings to the media when the
police basically refused to take them the morning of the crime was certainly a mistake even for a
16 year old but certainly rapid arrests without much in the way of evidence or any in the way
of evidence the dozens of leading interrogations of children without their parents or counsel
the blurring of church and state and some of the criminal proceedings those were also mistakes
but at 16 i was the weird kid printing off alchemical text in latin at the
library printer i was the the kid playing d and d though with none
of the other accused people actually some of those people i’d never even met before it’s hard to be in a conspiracy
with people you’ve never met i was a kid who discovered his jewish heritage it was actually over at the
local synagogue learning hebrew i was also the kid with the nine chanel shirt but
i was also the kid whose good friend was actually a head cheerleader at the school i was a kid that had
a ton of friends and never really experienced much in the way of bullying personally although it was certainly
endemic life is complicated people are complicated and no one
narrative captures what happened to me and that community nor anyone or any
community when a tragedy or the satanic panic happened but when the satanic panic came to my
community it very nearly destroyed my life and the lives of many other people
and even more grotesque was the process by which the families and the victims were told that a satanic
cult had done this horrible crime to them only to watch the narrative
evaporate with no explanation from community leaders when the reality that
it never happened that way became apparent a terrible crime happened in my community and the satanic
panic only functioned to deepen the trauma and lives more generally
i can only say that for myself and that’s all i can speak for i’ve tried to move on and live my life
the best that i can since then in fact my interest in esoterica more generally was ironically deepened by
what i experienced and if you’ve ever wondered why i have such a allergy to conspiracy theories and i focus so much
attention on historical demonologists and the witch trials this is probably why it’s
part of my psychology at this point of course this channel isn’t about me and it’s not about me and my beliefs
it’s about studying esoterica and presenting it using all the tools i have available to me
all the while trying to be as objective as possible i’m sure i’m going to fail at that in
this episode this is just part of who i am but there’s just no way for me to
discuss a satanic panic without at least mentioning how it dramatically impacted my life
though i’ll be honest i’m not going to be answering questions about this incident in the comments nor
through my website through personal correspondence it’s honestly pretty traumatic opening
up about all this on the internet on youtube and i’m not going to relive it in
microdoses in the comments section if you’re curious i’ve actually updated my faq on my website with some specific
details of what happened and didn’t happen to clear up a lot of misinformation you can check out the faq
on my website but at least for now this is really all i want to say about it publicly though i might be interested
in talking with a real journalist about this at some point because i don’t think the story of this entire incident has
ever really been fleshed out the satanic panic had its roots in the
european imagination of heresy witchcraft and demonology and then roared into existence into the real and
perceived social religious moral and economic degradation of the early 1980s
but continued well into the 1990s and is seeing something of a renaissance a resurgence in the
mythology of the q anon political religious movement it also very likely had an impact on many people
watching this episode perhaps the single best analysis of the
satanic panic is jeffrey victor’s title of that name it’s a book that not only
informed me in this episode greatly but i have to admit it was also kind of
deeply cathartic for me to read somehow it helped me to make sense of what had
happened to me and my community and given that it healed i think some of that trauma
thank you jeffrey victor if you were a victim of the panic then or the echoes of it now are just
christian hegemony more generally from being bullied or marginalized even physically accosted or accused of things
that you weren’t that you didn’t do or weren’t as a person i think you might find this volume
similarly illuminating i only wish that there were a second volume extending this really ingenious analysis
from the early 1990s where the book actually ends up till now and the q anon movement
there are a great many lessons to be drawn out of the 40 years since the satanic panic and some of which i’ve
actually articulated or tried to articulate in this episode though i think one that lingers with me the most
are a couple of quotes one from shakespeare’s the tempest what’s past
is prologue and the other from a fellow southerner faulconer
the past is never dead it’s it’s not even past
thus when i focused on demonologists the witch trials are here in the satanic panic
just know that i’m never really talking about merely the past i’m also trying to warn us about a
potential future a future that people watching this channel won’t be safe in
and so that’s a future i’m willing to do my best to prevent
i’m dr justin sledge and thank you for watching esoterica where we explore the arcane
in history philosophy and religion

Comments

Pinned by @TheEsotericaChannel
@Old52Guy
2 years ago
The best analysis of the event. I was a police officer at the time and the seminars and training all of us got was crazy. Everything we investigated, be it vandalism, trespassing, break-ins to abandoned buildings or anything else had to be examined through the Panic filter. Trouble making teenagers suddenly become unknown satanists. Graffiti taggers found they could whip up an entire neighborhood by painting a pentacle and random spray paint squiggles. Never, not once, was any proof found of bona fide satanists or satanic cults.
I am so sorry you had to experience the hatred of the fomenter of the lie. And that is precisely what it was. You are courageous for sharing your experience. Thank you for sharing.

1.9K

Reply

ESOTERICA
·

35 replies

@uponeldritchshores
3 years ago
Man I remember people in my church growing up looking at me with disdain and demanding my mother take away my D&D books back then. Good thing she didn’t- thanks ma.

2.1K

Reply

ESOTERICA
·

53 replies

@Jenny-if7kx
2 years ago
I was a kid in the ’80s. My parents blamed my brother’s schizophrenia on D&D, because of the Satanic Panic. So my mom took away all of our D&D stuff and our comic books. I never even got to learn how to play D&D.

People on the streat would yell at my other brother for the “devil music” he listened to while in his car. It was just the local pop radio station….that shit was crazy.

660

Reply

8 replies

@sheldorleconcher8870
2 years ago
As a teenager during the Panic, my friends and I were hounded from location to location because we played D&D. I remember thinking, “Are we the only ones who realize this is all imaginary?” Never had much use for the declarations of authority after that.

574

Reply

6 replies

@thomassheridanii2118
2 years ago
Thank you for pointing out that working class communities were specifically targeted during this wickedness. Entire streets of working class people in the north of England and in remote parts of Scotland were deliberately picked on by social workers precisely because they did not have the means to fight back against the revolting false accusations.

663

Reply

·

6 replies

@joseelturdburger8106
1 year ago
Chuck Norris doesn’t get accused of worshipping Satan. Satan gets accused of worshipping Chuck Norris.

38

Reply

@JordyWales
1 year ago
The satanic panic caused me grief as a child. My dad would flip out when I would play with toy snakes, toy reptiles and reading books on evolution. Something with my liking of metal and being a nerd. He would tell me I’m an atheist and I’m going to hell. I’m not an atheist and never have been. I believe in both God and evolution.

118

Reply

5 replies

@shelane1781
2 years ago
We just experienced a Satanic Panic episode in Tuscumbia Alabama. A local mystical shoppe planned a Yule Festival in the downtown area. A whole gaggle of baptist pastors and their congregations spread lies about the festival being a “worshipping of Satan” event and even showed up to the city council meeting protest. It was both hilarious and sad. They managed to spread the word about the festival and many of us were only made aware of it’s occurrence because of the press these zealots brought to it. It was a huge success.

265

Reply

4 replies

@EwMatias
3 years ago (edited)
This week my dad was institutionalized after a months long decline into paranoid delusions. At the core of his delusions it’s the basic tropes of the Saranic Panic and anti semitism.

The perpetrators of the Saranic Panic are some of the worst criminals that will never face any consequences for their crimes. The damage they have done is incalculable.

The future will be trying. We must all do our best to keep each other and our communities safe.

403

Reply

2 replies

@danielkover7157
2 years ago
I grew up in an evangelical Christian family. I wasn’t allowed to listen to rock music, play dnd, watch scary movies, or anything else fun. He-man, ninja turtles, and other magic or alternative spirituality related toys were off-limits.

When I grew up and moved out, I did all the things. I made up for lost time. Even though I was sort of a “model kid” (not a brag, trust me), I was already fringe. First and foremost, I had a mind of my own. I was asking lots of questions from an early age. I was attracted to Wicca, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, and other paths very early. I was aware of Buddhism at 15, thanks to a fascination with ninja and martial arts. I discovered Wicca when I was 16, and have been fascinated with the idea of magic ever since. I learned about ancient runes BECAUSE of the Satanic Panic, and that discovery fed an already strong love of languages and linguistics. All of these experiences kinda make me laugh. There’s a kind of irony in it.

Now I guess I’m a black sheep in my family, but I’m okay with that. Religion isn’t really my cup of tea now, but that subject and the subject of magic still fascinate me to this day.

I like your channel and videos, Dr. Sledge. Keep up the good work.

302

Reply

4 replies

@somasatori9117
2 years ago
I was one of the kids who had a daycare get an SRA accusation on them (1988). Sadly, I was actually being abused by a family member and losing my – I assume relatively safe – daycare left me in the care of a very abusive, very violent man. Unfortunately, I was also one of those kids whose abuser was able to prime to believe that I had suffered SRA from my daycare. Luckily my mother realized something (obviously not satanic) was off and she fled with me. Thanks for speaking on the topic.

246

Reply

@keturahspencer
3 years ago
I was born in 81 and raised in a pentacostal family. The satanic panic was definitely a part of my childhood, along with rapture fever. Thank you for explaining it.

321

Reply

7 replies

@gilgamesh…..
3 years ago
My parents basically tried to beat Christianity into me. My family, unfortunately, are the small minded people that see Satan or some other such evil in everything they don’t agree with. It’s sad and it shows that so many people never grow up, just old. Mentally they stay indoctrinated children from cradle to grave. It’s one of the reasons I’m such an introvert and a hermit now.

309

Reply

6 replies

@seafoxx777
2 years ago
It’s kinda funny…where I live, the satanic panic kinda forced our local Jewish community to have an unspoken bond with our local groups of Norse pagans and santeria people just by virtue of being “othered”. So thanks for the unity, Christians.

78

Reply

3 replies

@naturegirlinCA
2 years ago
In the 90’s, my ex husband and his wife would not let my daughters read R.L. Stine Goosebumps, because it was satanic. I was outraged and bought my girls several such books.

213

Reply

·

9 replies

@MartinMCade
2 years ago
I spent a short time attending an evangelical church as a teenager in the early 1980s. The Satanic panic was definitely part of that church and their Sunday school training. And there’s no way to avoid it, their prejudice against rock and roll was explicitly racist – to the point of depicting non-Europeans as jungle-dwelling devil worshippers. I don’t recall anti-Semitism in that church, but I only attended for a short time.

I think of it as a psychological inoculation against the type of brainwashing that these cults do to their members.

68

Reply

@solidshadow01
3 years ago
During the Satanic Panic, I was 13 and living with my sister in Louisiana. She and her husband attended a southern Baptist televised mega church and of course pressured me into attending. I was at the time what I considered a “sane Christian” and from my own experience somehow understood that what I was being told about D&D, Music, Vast Satanic Conspiracy, Backwards Masking, etc. was garbage. Still, I realized my only way to survive was to stay quiet, and pretend to believe everything they did. Meanwhile at school I was involved in a small Dungeons and Dragons game group during lunch periods and had a great time. Sometimes when you’re young and have no power, nodding and smiling is the only way to survive with your mind intact. To this day, I barely ever talk to my sister or other family for that matter. I just can’t let myself fall to that kind of blind stupidity. Thanks for posting this! It should be illuminating to those swayed by the BS of the past.Unfortunately many people think BS only happens in the past.

515

Reply

14 replies

@clockworkgnome
3 years ago (edited)
It was repeatedly said to me that I was “demon oppressed” as a teenager. It really messed with my head. Turns out it was bipolar II, but that diagnosis was after years of being gaslit (particularly by my own self) into thinking I was just terrible person. I don’t look at my teenage years and very early adulthood very fondly…

313

Reply

8 replies

@JH-hh5jm
9 months ago
All these years later, here we are again…

14

Reply

@OddSocksQueen
2 years ago
I was born in 1992, my parents were very level level headed. My grandma had an argument with my mum because she refused to get me christened (she’ll do that when she’s older if she wants to).
However anything to do with the occult I was steered away from because of a fear of demons. I was always interested in the paranormal, tarot and witchcraft. I thrived during history lessons when we looked at the witch trials and I fortunate to go to a school that taught it for what it was. However at home, I wasn’t taught to look further into these things despite showing an interest in it and succeeded at retaining the knowledge because of that. Such a weird mixed message to grow up with.

64

Reply

1 reply