The Satanic Panic - Historical, Mythological & Social Origins - How it Nearly Destroyed MY Life
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- Опубликовано: 11 авг 2022
- 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.
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#satan #satanicpanic #dungeonsanddragons
Recommended Readings:
Victor - Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend - 978-0812691924
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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.
This comment really means the world to me. Thanks so much!
@@TheEsotericaChannel I saw a lot of good people targeted and harmed by the Christian evangelicals who pushed this crap. I was censured by my department for not pursuing a couple of cases the community said was satanic but I knew was just teenager pranks.
i noticed that the evangelical hate preachers are starting to raise it again, especially Greg Locke and Bob Larson. The nutters from that group are all jumping on the bandwagon. I fear for those who may get swept up in it. Stay safe.
@@TheEsotericaChannel Good Sabbath, my friend.
In short, you threw away all your training and experience for sensationalism and the fantasy of being Holy Warriors. Evidence? Objectivity? Civil Rights? The Law? Nope. Just bigotry, peer pressure, and bullying. It was a disgraceful time to be a cop, and the profession has never truly recovered
@@Old52Guy Sorry you're unhappy. But that doesn't really matter. Police response to the Satanic Panic was a full-out disgrace. Law Enforcement betrayed every principle of impartiality, respect for the Law, evidence, investigation, and pretty much everything back to Robert Peel in order to be Holy Warriors Fighting for Christ and teach those weirdos a less.
They weren't duped. They jumped at the opportunity. They ostracized cops and prosecutors who didn't by into the lies. And they never EVER admitted they were wrong. It was a stain on the profession, and the fact that it was never cleaned up is a large part of why we have lies and pseudoscience putting innocent people behind bars to this day.
Grow up and own your mistakes and the mistakes of the people you identify with. Lives are at stake.
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.
Well done, mom. Well done.
I forgot to thank you for your work!! Tapadh Leat!
@@uponeldritchshores carson a' Ghàidhlig an-sin? Chan eil i aig an Dotair, a bheil? Agus, mura bheil sinn a' leantainn air Buffy is a: smaointinn gur e cànan nan deamhan a th' inntese, carson a bhitheanaid ga bruidhinn?
@@viktorkardell9366 love the sinner, hate the sin I guess. A thank you is a thank you where I come from, no matter how it’s spoken.
And now you're destroying your soul by imbibing Satan's video jizz. They were right!!
I grew up in a 'christian' cult. At about 9 I remember a beautiful girl that I had a crush on, Sarah and used to spend a lot of time playing with her brother Steven. She was always head-strong, determined, confident and attractive to me. One day while roaming the grounds of the compound I heard a lot of loud voices coming from their home. I asked Steven about it and he explained that the 'elders' of the church were 'casting out rock and roll demons' which had infested Sarah. Apparently, she had overheard some rock music while visiting a friend and became infected. So it was up to these 'elders' to perform an exorcism. I heard all these men yelling and I heard the voice of a young girl screaming. I was told it was the demons fighting against the power of god coming from these men. When I saw Sarah again, she was never quite the same. Despondent, distant, non-reactive, an empty shell of her former self. She had no emotion, didn't respond like the other childen, she was obviously damaged to her core from the experience. I rejected christianity at that point and have never looked back.
That is so sad. Christ is about love. I am sorry for what those folks did both to her and to you.
I hope you can meet true examples of Christ's followers, people who inspire compassion, not contempt. I will stop there. Be well.
@@Svensk7119 Sounds like your Christ is a friend while the Christ or the God of those elders was a little closer to old testament.
I sincerely hope that young woman eventually found herself again. The arrogance and the lack of insight so often plaguing the super religious never fails to amaze me. It shouldn't, I suppose. As the religious themselves sometimes say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
@@mjinba07 He is friendship defined, even well-sprung. That is, He is the Well-Spring of friendship. He died for me, and then returned. He did that for everyone. How could there be a better friend?
@@Svensk7119 Every evangelical Christian I've ever met is 110% convinced that their version of Christ, their beliefs, are the correct ones.
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.
I'm sorry. I was never allowed to learn how to play either. And still to this day I wish I could. Try the video game dragon age.
Did they ever realize their irrationality?
@@pappenheimer1510 My best guess is that those people don't even remember doing all that stuff.
@@Aurora.369I mean I might be down to dm a session for y'all
It's never too late! D&D is alive now more than ever. At the RPG meetup group I used to frequent we had a lady well into her 70s who played along with everyone else and we had a great time.
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.
As a former goth kid (well, current aging goth man, more like lol) who was born in 1985, I was lucky enough to have come of age shortly after the Satanic Panic had calmed down - Unfortunately, this also put me right square in the post-Columbine moral panic. Weirdos in black just can't win, apparently :P
It did seem like the overwhelming majority of adults had lost their minds.
I was 6-7 years old when claims of backward masking in music became popular again. I was an advanced reader and carried around Nancy Drew books, a book on FBI investigations, a magnifying glass and other investigative tools everywhere I went. Like Tinker Bell bath powder used to collect finger prints 😂
I was 99% sure the claims were bogus (my father kept saying they were and telling me about similar claims when he was growing up) and I had to test it.
My older brothers had most of the albums in question. I played them all backwards, to their dismay.
Nothing, just as I suspected.
Luckily I was too cute to kill.
I love your investigative fervor! @@pollysshore2539
@@pollysshore2539 Not surprising to see that a little girl had more common sense and comprehension skills than a bunch of boomers. Well done.
@@Nefylym I was quite sure most adults had lost their minds then. Sadly, I am sire a lot of kids feel the same way for many of the same reasons today.
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.
I'm so sorry for you and your family. Your poor dad.
It’s jus the modern continuation of the witch hunt insanity. It’s baked into Abrahamism and manifests in various ways throughout the centuries. This is the current manifestation of it and it’s pretty pathetic as it always is.
They can smash our statues, but will we never die! Those who resist Abrahamism will remain despite their desperate efforts to destroy us, our temples, and our statues.
There were more perpetrators than not. There's a reality there that sucks
One of the many grand schemes of causing damage to humankind. They are piling up on each other these days, with new ones coming before the old ones are in any way processed; maybe exactly because of that.
It may not be an easy lesson to learn, but it is simple: The masses keep choosing to serve fear, because it seems personally beneficial (at the expense of others, especially those of higher virtue).
Hey man, I'm hoping his situation has improved since this comment. Or at very least, you and your family have been able to heal somewhat.
Wishing all the best.
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. 👍
Blessed be. ✌
I have a very similar story. My father was not religious but I was questioning my mum (still goes to “mass” every day) from the age of 4-5 years old. Getting to the truth of Who We Are etc. has completely fascinated me my entire life. I’ve tried to make sense of nearly every mystical experience known to mankind in an 8000 word body of work. It now has to be changed into an “animated” series -
perhaps a comedy -
And. you. know. why.
Kathy Prince
Lioness Networks
Australia 🇦🇺
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.
Of course, I was in one of those working class families
That’s scummy, the bastards
💯👏👏
The persecution of the "Satanics" in the early 90's Egypt is an interesting parallel in some ways, except it was lower class conservatives getting sympathetic intelligence officers to persecute the nascent heavy metal scene in Cairo.
Absolutely! We had a mix in America. Most of the day care panics and general panics about children were centered around the middle - upper classes. Of course you had many working class daycare employees that were caught up in this process but the owners were financially stable and most of the panicked parents were upper middle class families with stay at home moms who put their children in daycare part time for socialization.
The teens - young adults that were targeted, along with their families, were primarily working/lower class.
I started researching the spread of the panic in 1993-94 (thanks to the World Wide Web) and came across stories of impoverished families being explicitly targeted in the U.K. Some children removed from their homes during the panic ended up spending a decade in care because their families were poor. There was no other reason or explanation.
The BBC documentary When Satan Came to Town illustrates this to a sickening degree.
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.
Good for you ;)
That's the first time I heard Goosebumps attacked
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.
That Rapture Fever was no joke.
@@jnanashakti6036 Haha! Which one? There were so many! The satanic panic thing pretty much resulted in 1980s metal bands trolling all the churchies for twenty years. And since there isn't really an expiration date, I just saw a Nevada senator speaking about it. Hilarious. But not as funny as the rapture people and their Hard Out dates. How do they retain ANY credibility? Some of their parishioners go into debt or ruin their lives, because they think their Just Reward is acomin. And no court would allow them to sue the Revelator, because it's bananas to take them at their word.
Omg. Those teen leaders should be held responsible for traumatizing us about the rapture. Showed us Image of the Beast when I was 10. I was sure I was left behind in more than one occasion.
Born in 83 here and yes, growing up pentecostal in the midst of this madness was no joke.
Me too! The funny thing is that I mentioned it to my parents and they didn’t even know what the Satanic Panic was. It seemed all normal to them. Rapture Fever was fun for me. I had already pretty much separated myself from religion so reading the books and seeing the conspiracy connections was like a game.
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.
So what I've met a Satanist that plays dungeons and dragons.. he got his little baal ring from his grandma in Tennessee where they have some big name in catholic/civil war fame/italian circles. Baptists? Lol man there's a whole denomination that believes John the baptist was the real messiah and says Jesus was a fraud and of the devil.
So from someone's perspective... thinking John the baptist is Jesus is satanic..
Hey plus the cia used some satanic cults to hide within and do their thing.
Probably find dirt and blackmail ppl who were already used to lying so they could be leveraged as assets.
Sorry your past was dumb..
It's no reason for you to be dumb though.
Call your sister idiot
_Unfortunately many people think BS only happens in the past._
This hits so hard... So many of today's problems are so similar to what's already happened. I'm so saddened by how short our cultural memory is.
word
nodding and smiling huh? no... if you just nod and smile no one stops bullying you, you need to act preferably in a violent way if you see someone bully you or threaten your life
@mpo48 I don't think you understand the situation or you misread. What I wrote about isn't bullying, it's indoctrination by authority figures at a time when I had no power in my life. It wasn't some kid at school, being a jerkwad that I could have punched and dealt with, it was a whole system. It was all the adults and authority figures in my life. Being violent in that situation would have put me in a worse situation not only short term but possibly long term as well, especially as a minor. I was in a new place and had no support from anybody. What are you proposing I should have done? Be verbally and physically violent with my older sister's family? Punched out the pastor burned down the house? Deviousness and subversion isn't cowardice, sometimes it the best option in a shitty situation.
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.
yea ive seen such tings, its disgusting. Now in the south "hippy shops" and weed shops now sell crystals and sage. you might get lucky and find a crystal shop but its still hush hush because people will throw a fit.
Mystic shops are as much of a scam as the counterpart is
@@mikukene1998 Caveat emptor, to be sure, but in my experience, growing up in Imperial Center (Texas), such shops allowed me to meet and mingle with other like minded freethinkers who were tired of being lied to by the Christian dogmatists. I rarely bought anything from those shops, yet walked away with a fortune of knowledge relayed to me by true elders who regarded the youth with kindness, patience, and understanding. Unlike the Christians who seem so eager to leap at any chance to destroy autonomy, creativity, and compassion.
The Streisand Effect in action. I'm glad the festival was a success and I hope you were able to hold it again!
My dad lived through the Satanic panic, all of his minis, fantasy books, D&D books and Metal music. All burned in the backyard. It's crazy how usually rational people like my grandparents got sucked into this, it really played to their fears.
That's too bad. Is he an avid collector of any of those things today?
Unfortynately I can't blame them for trying to protect their child. It was foolish to believe such nonsense like "yer kid is going to become a satanist because of a dice rolling game", but then again, the 24h news cycle didn't work. Especially when someone had lived through the 60s and 70s and saw people lose their lives or become homeless addicts because of joining some imaginary cause. In hindsight yes, they were terribly wrong and misjudged your dad's hobbies. But we aren't them, then and there.
Did they ever realize their irrationality? Did your father talk to them later about all that?
@@pappenheimer1510 No. Not really. My Grandma hates everything I do and like. She ended up cutting me and my dad out of the family recently because of her beliefs. Makes me wonder if she ever was rational. Made my dad and I closer though and we still play D&D.
@@vegastrina Yeah he got me into D&D and Magic the Gathering. He doesn't collect too much since we share all of our nerd stuff.
i remember seeing a police officer, a detective, on tv during the satanic panic who said something like "satanic criminals aren't like other criminals in that they don't leave clues." that's not a direct quote, but i swear it's very, very close to what the officer actually said. even as a kid i remember how crazy a thing to say that was. it was a really weird time to grow up especially for a d&d playing nerd, as i'm sure you know personally. i'm glad you made it through such a trying experience.
I remember one expert being quoted as saying, "Sometimes a lack of evidence is the strongest evidence of all."
@@eshaftowow, heads I win, tails you loose... thinking of the indoctrinated.
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.
2/3rds god, 1/3rd man
Much inner-standing and shalom!
Yikes - this is why it's so important to be aware of our own ideologies and what they do. Without a proper frame of understanding, an entire lifetime of experiences is wasted.
It's sad, but I try to remind myself that people don't chose what they believe, becoming convinced is typically a subconscious process, at least it certainly is in my experiences. This helps me "hate the belief, not the believer" in a manner of speaking..
@@trybunt I get that. I've told plenty of people you can't help what you believe. You simply believe it.
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.
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.
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…
My religious upbringing prevented me from getting a bipolar diagnosis till I was 29 years old.
I spent my 20s soaked through with booze to self medicate
@@JonahPleatherbooth While I wasn’t soaked in booze, I literally became a shell of a human being, I would lay in bed all day not watching tv, reading, or even listening to music. I would have multiple panic attacks daily and would need to have someone nearby in case I tried to hurt myself…. It was actual hell…. It lasted in that form for 3 years. It ruined a lot of things. I’m just lucky I was on disability benefits from the government so I didn’t *have* to work.
@@JonahPleatherbooth I’m sorry you went through that…
@@tangentreverent4821 What bullshit…My best friend’s little sister was/is treated that way by my former church…
@@JonahPleatherbooth cannabis is a better medication.
I started playing d&d just this side of the worst of the satanic panic. The main effect I noticed were most of the players that came and went in that period got into the hobby thinking that it was something satanic and edgy, and many were quite disappointed.
The last little gasp I can remember of dealing with this directly was working in a bookstore in 2000. Some woman asked for recommendations for children's books, and when I naturally suggested Harry Potter her response was 'No.....no, no...no, no, no.....no" she eventually stated her obvious objection, but it was her tone and attitude that I always remember. Not ranty or overbearing. She looked absolutely dumbfounded and shocked that such an abhorrent, evil thing would be said so casually in public. I had so thought that stuff had gone away, especially to the point where someone like that would just assume that their opinion was the common one.
I knew someone like this, mentioning Harry Potter was like reciting de Sade out loud.
I got a lot of free books in the 80s from christian parents
I grew up with “Harry Potter is recruiting your child for Satan” flying around my house. Watched the movies when my stepchild started getting into it. Coming to it that late had a detrimental effect, I actually sympathize with Snape!😂
I saw nothing more objectionable than there was in Star Wars, which had become blasé to most religious by my youth (still some people saying the Force was the devil, but my parents still let me watch it as a kid).
Did you hear of the instance at some PTA meeting somewhere, I think it was Wisconsin or another midwestern state, where a parent referenced The Onion newspaper as a source for the satanic influence of Harry Potter?
Yeah Harry Potter is bad but Lord of the Rings is ok. I think most ppl just fall in line with group think because it’s easier and takes less studying and research. LOR was ok because it was written by a Christian and Harry was not. Wtf? 😮
I'm of Basque/French descent and was born in 1987 in New Jersey. I listened to Black Sabbath, Rammstein, NIN, etc. as well as dressed usually in dark colors or black. After Colombine and Marilyn Manson and all that, at home and in school, as well as in my appropriate countries of descent (whom I visited often to see family and grandparents) I was put through "the usual", stared at, cursed at, spit at, bullied, and all the rest that came with being oneself in the "fringes of society". Very grateful for your channel and this new cornucopia of long-lost knowledge here on RUclips. Bravo with everything you do!
Jersey was a bastion of satanic panic in the 80’s!
And all that attack came from “loving” religious people. 🤨
Thank you so much for covering this topic so thoroughly. As a child victim of one of the evangelical Christian doomsday cults (yes it made the FBI list, and HBO even did an expose), this really needs to be talked about more. Watching our parents and friends fall back into Q-anon has been devastating for a lot of us. It's tragic.
America has issues.
@@mcsmith732 Oh yeah, we’re f***ed 17 ways to Sunday. Inability to face ourselves and our past/current demons collectively has made our society neurotic, anxious, violent, confused, complacent….
@@mcsmith732America, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Norway, South Africa… all experienced the Satanic Panic.
America is a baby in relation to witch hunts when compared to the rest of Europe.
I’ve spent the majority of my life worried about the (now) adults that experienced the Satanic Panic as toddlers in daycare centers.
Some won’t remember it, others do and know it was a panic, and some became believers.
Unfortunately some became grifters as well.
Geraldos’ Satanic Panic special contained interviews with older alleged abuse victims from McMartin pre school. He failed to mention that they were not a part of the court case at all. Their families were grifters looking for a payout. Most of them claimed to be abused by Ray Buckey when he was a teenager/high school student and didn’t work at the daycare.
The accusations they made were the most absurd and extreme of all.
Oprah failed to mention that the same group participated in her show about McMartin on her network 5+ years ago. They tried to hide the identities of some of the parents but not well. They’ve been part of the same group insisting there were tunnels under McMartin for decades.
A friend of mine who lived just up the street from us was basically disowned by his foster mother and sent back into the foster care system after he was found to be connected to some kind of secret occult club at his junior high school; from what I gathered at the time it was basically a small group of kids who were going through the usual standard edgy teenager phase, getting together to read Anton Lavey books and such. I never saw or heard from him again, and the lady who had previously fostered him went off the deep end and fully bought into the idea that anything that made conservative Christians uncomfortable was further evidence of the global satanic conspiracy.
She later started insinuating that my mom was an unfit mother because she let her kids play D&D and watch fantasy and horror films; I am also pretty sure she sabotaged my mother's attempt to adopt an orphaned little girl around that time. I'm not sure how much of that was based on her disapproval of my mother's parenting choices and how much of it was getting back at my mother for bluntly telling her that her conspiracy theories were nuts.
I've also become more interested through my life in trying to learn more about this bizarre episode of American culture that I lived through...thank you for sharing your experience and doing this video.
The witch hunt chapter in Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World was seriously disturbing to me... I can't believe the lengths people are willing to go to persecute and torture anyone who is different from themselves for imaginary acts on such an institutionalized scale, in the belief that their cruel and evil acts are sanctioned by God. As usual, this was a really interesting and informative episode, and I'm sorry that you got caught up in the panic.
Yeah, that's what scares me.
I think we should honestly bury a 🪣 of D&D
I'm only 27, but I grew up in the Bible belt where it's not unheard of for some people to still believe in this. I saw how other kids were treated in school, so I kept silent about my own beliefs. Luckily as an adult I can be open about my beliefs (it prolly helps that I'm 6'5 and 270 lb) people don't bother me at least not to the extent I still see this happening to others. It is important that we all stand up against those who would see others perish than make an effort to understand them. Thank you for speaking out
27 here too, moved from Michigan to Virginia when I was 11. My mom is awesome, she says she's a Christian but it's easy to see she only holds the love she picked up from being raised by decent catholics (ive never heard her say a single theological thing in her life) , she was all for me being into Slipknot and wearing all black and doing whatever I wanted.
I was a little bigger and kind of precocious about my interests and "didnt care what people thought," but wow, be thankful you didnt make it obvious back then. I did say I believed in god and would argue about how to blend theology and science but in my heart I didnt believe in anything. I never got physically attacked but it probably was only because my size as well.
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.
The Satanic Panic was saturated in antisemitic beliefs. The folklore involves a Jewish, Satanic, Nazi, doctor who was allegedly brought to America by the CIA in the wake of WWII. “Dr. Greenbaum” allegedly conducted mind control experiments and Satanic programming on the masses.
It’s baked in at every turn.
I grew up in southern Baptist land but thankfully the church my parents attended was very moderate. There was no promotion of Satanic Panic.
My father was a part time bluegrass musician and a lover of rock & roll. As soon as he heard the claims about backwards masking he rolled his eyes and said, “not this s**t again!” 😂
My parents realized it was a panic rather quickly. I remain grateful for that.
The Panic even had fingers reaching into the new millennia. When I was in high school in the early 00s, I discovered D&D and joined the local club. The teacher who headed the club once recounted how the principal had come to him once and asked him if it was promoting Satanism. Thankfully, the teacher was coolheaded and told the principal to sit in on a session to see how it went, rather than doing anything rash, but it still astounded me that the principal, who otherwise seemed like a straight laced normal guy, could have believed that nonsense.
Coven? Curiois choice of word as it is more commonly used for wicca and other witches, and not any modern form of satanism.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof Did you respond to the wrong comment?
It's the supposedly "straight laced normal" people who are *most* likely to believe that nonsense. 🙄😒
@@Domriso seems likely, I thought I was going crazy lol
Heh heh... You discover the "freak" in people when their true religious beliefs are revealed. You characterized your principal as being "straight-laced". The Satanic Panic was/is fully in the domain of the Straight-Laced. The "ultra normies" can become the REAL demons more often than not. ;-)
I was in fourth grade when I started playing D&D, around 1984; my mom helped me learn the rules running the first mini adventure in the Red Basic set from the BECMI rules. Thank you, mom. My little group of friends even managed to convince the teachers to let us play in the library during lunch until we were just too loud and having too much fun. Somehow my little southern home town managed to only give us side eye, but otherwise let us alone.
Same here - just in the UK. And it was my (Christian) dad who got my siblings and I into sci-fi and Tolkien. We grew up with "kids' version" books of Greek and Norse legends. The only things my parents never understood or approved of was my interest in war history. My mum hated the models I had of German tanks. Wasn't allowed to have toy guns even, until they gave up when we started making our own out of lego and bits of wood. And any porn that I saw was outside the confines of the family home. Would never have dared face the consequences of mum finding it. But yeah.. they let us play D&D at school.
That is awesome. I was born in '88 and when I was in high school, I had a 2nd period study hall and played D&D during it (3.5 Edition at the time).
But to have played the Mentzer BECMI set in it's heyday, man, that must have been incredible.
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.
It’s probably because getting into the occult actually goes against the bible and they’re right to have been mad about you doing that. It’s just a matter how how they deal with it that could go anywhere from them yelling at you to burning you at the stake as they did to others like us.
This is a major reason why I abandoned the church and would never go back even if they paid me.
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.
Isn't that essentially Freemasonry?
I understand that this is so completely difficult and traumatic to talk about. It was a horrible experience for everyone involved. I dare say, that the only thing more horrible than having a run in with these crazy people was actually growing up in one of these families and being forced to live it 24/7/365. Where the people who are supposed to protect you from the crazy people actually ARE the crazy people. The traumas run deep, and many of us never escape that mental prison. PLEASE KNOW that this is why your work is so important. Your work is helping people like me to try and sort all of this horriblness out so that we can move on as well. You are helping to put these things to rest so much more than you will ever know. Thank you so much for all that you do to bring the truth and understanding to light.
All Love, Lightness, and the Warmth of complete Acceptance protect you. May all/any who have felt the separated from the Divine by narrow thinking be healed completely... even if it requires a hard learning for those whose hearts cannot see OR THINK...Namaste, dear Soul...
I suspect the Satanic Panic drove more away from mainline protestantism than from D&D...
I was a teenager in the '80s and remember how this was just constantly in the news.
Thanks for the courage in sharing your own personal connection to this topic.
i had a cousin that had a book about "satan in rock music", something like that, and i remember how ludicrous part of it was, they were talking about the crowd chanting "die, die, die" during the song "creeping death", which is pretty hilarious when you read the lyrics to the song, which is about the exodus of the jews from egypt, basically a bible story, seeing them paint a song that comes from the bible as evil and satanic is sort of funny/sad/and scary all at the same time
@@Shlogger probably shock and panic
Your channel means a lot to me. My dad was a Southern Baptist minister. I clearly remember all of the 80s and 90s Satanic Panic. Distinctly the West Memphis 3 because I grew up (and still live) nearby.
Channels like yours have helped explain, but not excuse, why I was raised the way I was, though I’ve had to spend a great deal of time in therapy dealing with what can only be considered mental abuse by the church.
Thank you for such a personal ending to what is otherwise still a very educational video.
My dad was also a southern baptist preacher. I haven’t met many others, but it really does feel like I had been brainwashed in many ways. Wishing you all the best in your journey.
When I was young, a kid I knew committed suicide and his parents tried to blame it on D&D. I actually knew that the kid had committed suicide because he had failed several classes and was terrified of what his parents would do to him. I made sure to tell absolutely everyone I could about the real reason he committed suicide.
Was there an obituary I could look up?
@@GredelsRage It wasn't your fault. I'm sorry that you still feel that it maybe was your fault. I wish I had a brother like you that introduced me to cool stuff.
Of course like usually parents who don't want to face that the blame lays on them and then blaming it on fantasy creatures instead. Disgusting waste of oxygen these so called parents.
@@teijaflink2226Some adults can and will have a hard time facing reality.
I don’t think it’s wise to blame anyone for a persons suicide. There are generally mental health issues involved.
I was still floored by the number of parents that blamed every problem in their family on some outside source. The music or game was allegedly causing mental illness. No. Genetics are most likely involved.
A rejection of reality was seen at every turn. Researchers were well aware that the majority of abuse faced by women and children was at the hands of someone they knew in the 1970s. Many preferred and still prefer to place the blame on strange monsters.
Hey man, I’m a committed lurker for the most part, and rarely comment on anything.
Thank you so much for this.
In the mid nineties I was a little goth kid up here in rural Canada. Before and after columbine was pure hell for me, from rocks and food being thrown, to being kicked out of classes by Über Christian teachers, culminating in being intentionally hit by a car.
We were the most peaceful people, and to be fair most of us listened to the techno of the time. A gun was pulled on my friend, the police routinely harassed us, and our families would tell us we brought it on ourselves for dressing the way we did. It was traumatic and helped inform our futures in a big way. My condolences to any and all of those dark folk of the 90’s.
In the end, most of us are doing well, are great parents, professionals, and still rock black nail polish.
Sorry that happened to you! I got called all kinds of stuff in school. Many thought I was a devil worshiper and I got in many fights but many years later my life is good and I’m thankful. I don’t do the nail polish anymore but I still rock my metal shirts and some do have pentagrams 😂🤘🏼
At least now a days we can call them what they are.
The christian taliban.
These people need to be ostracized and excluded from society imo. We should have no room for religious fundamentalists in our society.
but if you embrace the current liberal/leftist agenda then you are supporting the exact same type of thinking that caused you so much trouble back then.
@@joejones9520 Really? There are liberal cops harassing kids like during this era?(The answer is no) Read some of these comments. People who literally grew up with small town schools, churches, legislatures, cops harassing people for real, during this era. Even neighbor against neighbor, like the freaking East German Stasi.
@@Neenerella333 gotta read history and look at the bigger picture...the kind of society libs think they want ultimately leads to total loss of individual freedom and a rise to the top of the kind of people who in a free society can only cause petty and localized troubles like you describe.
I grew up in small town Louisiana in the 2000's. I was in a very religious community, and I was that weird goth kid. Autistic, had an interest in DnD, The occult, metal, industrial, goth , punk, swords, gore, horror films ect. Needless to say, just being who i was got me beaten up, bullied, persecuted.The echo still hasn't faded in some parts. I was lucky that nothing bad happened in that town or i woulda been looked at for sure. And i fear with the recent revival, its got the potential to get really bad. I kinda had a hunch about the satanic panic's orgins but this puts it into a more concise perspective. Thank you so much for this video.
Dr. Sledge, this video has cemented my conviction that I want to study social psychology, and specifically social contagions. I was already interested in the phenomenon for other reasons, but this particular panic strikes me as being of paramount importance in our current social age. As a trans person, I see people accusing us constantly of indoctrinating children and grooming/abusing them in ways that are eerily similar to this whole sex cult business, and yet the newest twist is that they're also accusing *us* of being the spreaders of a social contagion that is convincing their children to be trans. I believe it is some of the most important work in the discipline of psychology to nail down exactly what a social contagion is and how it operates, to stop marginalized people from being systematically blamed for social ills.
I lot of people don't understand the depth of the amount of victims of the satanic panic. I was raised in the aftermath in the 90s in a small town where the accusations still got flung around and my mother accusing everything and everyone (which was funny considering my father use to play D&D as a teen and still wanted to but held back because of her) so I never learned of the worst until I was older.
Figures, I'd grow to love most things that would have had me attacked. I knew this. But the day I found out the amount of teachers and beloved members of communities having their lives destroyed because of these accusations...how many were queer and especially targeted (and we still see the impact of that to this day from far right conspiracy theorists that gay people are part of satanic cults aiming to sacrifice children)...it was all very devastating. My mother would have put me at the stake. She still would if she discovered a lot of my life now.
So many were never freed from prison, so many false confessions because of hours of grilling and harassment from cops, and if they did get out their entire life was uprooted with reputation destroyed. The lack of accountability hurts every time to hear about. I'm sorry you had to deal with that first hand.
Having grown up mega religious (but after this era) I absolutely understand how people convince themselves these bizarre and awful things really happened.
The things you and your classmates went through is absolutely devastating. We all deeply appreciate your willingness to open up about the experience. It does help this all to have the proper impact it deserves for those of us who weren't around yet.
Thanks for the kind and thoughtful comment!
I was going to comment this, but you beat me to it!
I appreciate the more nuanced takes - I've never been religious (parents gave me a Catholic baptism and haven't taken me to a church since - sometimes I joke the water sizzled), so seeing to me what seems like pointless and misguided death and suffering just boils my blood.
Thank you so much for sharing this deeply important video with us, Justin, including the undoubtedly traumatic personal experience that must have taken a great deal of courage to share.
This is clearly one of the cyclical horrors that won't go away until we all remember. Thank you for this very solid brick in the memorial monument.
Thanks so much, friend! It was a very difficult time in my life, but no roses without thorns. I'm just blessed to be doing what I'm doing now in such wonderful community as people like yourself. Hope you are well!
A community under the control of such zealous fear and anger can cause so much destruction. I'm sorry for what you endured. Your bravery and candor are proof of your tremendous strength of character. ❤
just dropping in to say, Thank you! for the content itself, and also for sharing your own story. I'm from the Philippines, and I was into punk music in the 80s and a physics major in college. my self-avowed Christian professors accused me of being a Satanist and would read scripture directed at me in class, just because I dressed a certain way and listened to certain music. One of them even insisted I attend born again Christian seminars on weekends! It's a wonder I ever finished college, come to think of it! This video made me realize, maybe it wasn't just my dumb luck this was all happening, that maybe it was this 'Satanic Panic' that had somehow spread all the way to the other side of the world, the Philppines. Anyway, whatever the case, again, thank you for this video!
I had the opposite problem when I was in my teens. In the 80s I was orphaned and entered the "system". While I respect your experiences and subsequent findings of no evidence of organized child abuse ,my experience was that at every level of the system there were predators feeding on vulnerable children. We had no advocates and rather than finding people looking for bad actors,we often were not believed when someone was brave enough to accuse a staff member,who in words similar to the ones you used to describe them,deeply cared about children and spent years working on their behalf. This was the camouflage they wore to protect themselves from those who couldn't believe that this could be happening and in many cases they were protected by superiors who indulged in similar behaviors. I'm in my 50s now and still deal with the trauma. There are demons out there that devour children.
Absolutely, but society has a maddening habit of chasing these unfounded phantasms rather than doing the dirty work of going after the real monsters you’ve described. I believe that is what Dr Sledge was trying to say; I doubt he meant to invalidate your very real trauma.
Abusive things do happen and they hide it with " conspiracy theory ". Good people can't believe the bad things people can do. Seems dangerous to write off the possibility that people could be doing evil things intentionally or unintentionally.
@@cindysmith9087 My point exactly. I am not saying that the good Dr. is denigrating my experience, at all. AI just believe that when one hasn't encountered their shadow in the Jungian sense, then it is difficult to believe that anyone could perpetrate such horrors and those that have encountered their shadow and are comfortable there indulge in, aid, and abet these crimes. They can wear anything from ceremonial robes to 1% patches but believe me,they exist. I heard that a paranoid person is merely someone who knows more than you.lol. Of course, there is a line that one must draw with reason and experience of human nature but God bless anyone that has never experienced that type of perplexing ,unfathomable evil.
Many that work WITH children are perverts and pedophiles indeed. It’s not organized or anything. It’s worldwide. Church, school, coaches etc
yeh i think the image of what ritual abuse actually is is often sensationalised by the church and online conspiracy theorists which unfortunately has the opposite of the desired effect. its essentially just organised sociopathy and contemporary slavery with ideological justification. as a sufferer of DID i am in a community full of people who have experienced SRA and RA, and theyr'e experiences are real, they are taken seriously by law enforcement because these people are trafficking victims whos claims have lead to real arrests in the past - iv'e even read that a vast majority of recovered child porn takes place in a ritual setting. this type of anti-satanic-panic discussion never really addresses this and just feeds the culture of disbelief surrounding these forms of contemporary slavery.
i cant find a link but a victim of sra from the city im currently living escaped, studied a double degree in law and psychology, then sent them to prison by representing her self in court.
The way you link the tumults of the late-70’s and 80’s to the rise of Satanic panic is very well done! Wish more videos on the topic covered the background history the way you do!
Yep, without grasping the concrete, material conditions which give rise to these things I don't think we can accurately understand them. If we don't understand them we can't stop them from happening again.
@@TheEsotericaChannel "Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress".
I think of this all the time when I see seemingly bizarre conspiracies or new spiritual movements sprouting in our current climate. It's not simply a matter or ignorance as some of my friends believe, but rather that these serve a function, that they're an expression of and response to some real issue in the world.
Thank you for sharing this information, Justin, as well as your own painful experiences. I am 20 years older than you and I well remember some of the bizarre events of the Satanic panic. Pedophile tunnels, record burnings, accusations of ritual baby sacrifice, accused teenagers, repressed memories... I had never associated that era with the early modern witch hunts or the insane QAnon movement. You are quite right: the past is never past.
I heard on the T.V of a witch-hunt in Shetland UK, I was only 13/14 years old. It shocked me seeing children being taken from their families. I didn't know it was across America too and to hear it from the horses mouth, amazing. I see why you are so rigorous with facts, opinions and sources, I see you are a truth seeker :) blessings. How wide the ripples go. I hid my faith from my own son, just in case he said something wrong at school. I only relaxed when he became 18 and no one could accuse us and then take him away, and it was only last year that I put 'Witch' on our government assessment paperwork. What a life.
This video struck me deeply, having also felt the effects of the Panic in the weeks following the Columbine shooting. My D&D group was targeted by the school, resulting in harrassment from the campus police officers, formal investigations into our parents (including an officer who left out a stack of papers with our parent's personal data and gun registrations on a table where it was grabbed by a student), and ultimately some suspensions from school. All of it was based on nothing and it frankly devistated the life of one of my friends, who was ostracized because he refused to stop wearing a black trench coat that his estranged father had given him when he was a child. No one ever said the word 'Satan' but it was definitely in the air.
I'm sure all animal shelters refusing to sell black cats in the weeks prior to Halloween is about absolutely nothing... What is there to having a pentagram tattooed on your skin right? 'Nothing to it really. All made up.
Thank you for this - as a Social Worker who teaches other Social Workers- I am grateful to have this to share and help educate and inform about the profound importance of ethics and the human cost of not maintaining them - thank you for sharing this ❤️
I understand why you don't want to go into detail. From my own experience I know that being at ground zero of a major news event and seeing the public understanding of it completely and obviously off the rails is infuriating. This was a very good episode and I am grateful for your work.
Sorry for your bad past experience, I'm glad that didn't drive you away from studying obscure history. Your channel is a huge source of information and inspiration for my work
I was still chuckling about the “Joy Division to Satanism Pipeline” image when you moved on to the topic of subliminal messages in music and I burst out cracking up when something flashed on the screen. Your use of humor is always a treat. I now feel strangely compelled to join your Patreon….
P.S. your self-disclosure was important and helpful 🙏🏻
It said !noertaP ym nioJ
I had to try 5 times to catch it! Lol
I took chuckled as Joy Division was and is one of my very favorite punk groups of all time. Their songs really spoke directly to me as a teen.
Yvan eht nioj
I could tell from early on in the video that this was a very personal upload. It’s a topic that you deftly demonstrated to be at once timely and timeless.
Thank you for sharing your experience-it’s the personal touches of channels like yours and others in the religious studies space that make for a truly special place on the internet.
I actually got into occultism through my best friend. He remains a fantastic dungeon master, and close confidant on occult subjects. Never have we talked about sacrificing a child, or anyone for that matter. Most dangerous thing we’ve gotten into is hearing monkeys in southeast GA mid full moon ritual.
Wow man, this was great. Thank you for telling your story. I love how you constructed this video, specifically how you broke down each part of the system that harmed you with such empathy before leading into the specifics with such vulnerability. I’ve been enjoying your videos as an academic curiosity, and didn’t expect to be hit this way at all. You do great work!
I remember all of this as a 10ish year old in the rural south. Ignorance and fear of the unknown caused insane mass hysteria. There were teens accused of horrible things because they wore black leather or listened to punk or metal. Crimes were dreamed up for no reason except ignorance and fear. Humans, whoa.
Ohhh I lived through that! Some nervous house wife reported our little hometown Wiccan coven which caused the FBI to start spying on us. Luckily they dropped the whole thing writing us off as "not a danger to the public"....but they did show up on my friends door to pretty much tell his mother that during their surveillance we had had a party at her house with underage drinking (she was away to Florida) so he got in a lot of trouble and tried to kill himself. I remember living in fear for a month thinking they were going to come narc me out to my parents too. Ahhh the 1980s.....a little sample taste of the 1600s. lol
I remember even in the mid to late 2000’s my very Christian grandmother trying to tell me that my Magic: The Gathering cards were satanic. That was the beginning of my distrust of her blind faith and cultish behavior. Worship your god, not your religion, folks.
I appreciate your personal story. My Ex accused me of satanism during our divorce. I was studying/practicing Buddhism, Golden Dawn and Patanjali meditation. It’s was frightening because I knew people have such bias against non-Christian spiritual paths. She knew I was not a satanist (not even the atheist modern type) but, she knew she could use it as a weapon against me. It makes you realize how vulnerable it is to think outside the box.
As always, your content is very well done, keep up the “great work” (pun intended)
I’m sorry that happened to you and to your community. It’s good that such a destructive set of events didn’t destroy you’re curiosity. This is one of my favorite channels, and I’m grateful that you share you’re studies, insights, and wisdom. This is probably why you’re able to explain so much of this content with a calm and collected demeanor, while lots of people tend to get excited when it comes to these kinds of topics. Thank you for sharing your story, and your studies. This channel is everything I always wished the history channel would be.
Thank you for this episode and, your candor. My family moved to Tx in 1980 and I attended and graduated HS in '84. because of my hair length, taste in music and choices in books, comics and yes, AD&D, I was called out of class to attend an event in our schools auditorium. where several members and the Pastor of a Christian Evangelical church railed against music, specific authors and D&D. warning me and the singled out (numbering approx 35-40 other students). given print outs of bands, and specific musicians, authors and titles to avoid and, thus save our souls from damnation. To my parents credit, when i informed them, they were angry and demanded a meeting with administrators. The admins/School district ignored all complaints and I was then labled and treated as a "problem" student. ultimately it was horrible and shocking yet, my family (who were not religious) talked with my sister and I and the parents of my friends. providing us forum to be heard and reassured they recognized the harm and potential dangers. What I find most disturbing is the evolving narrative and the longevity of the fear of "other" and societal adeptness in pivoting to include new "others" to suit an agenda. Again, thank you for sharing your personal experience. The inclusion of which added context and moves the issue away from abstraction into contemporary relevance.
This brings back memories. I was not allowed to play D&D as a kid. Now I see the silliness of it all. Great report here!
I remember this time period very well. I was that kid, the outsider, in to metal music, d&d, the occult, COS, and wicca. To look back on it now and consider it similar to waves of panic like the witch trials makes a great deal of sense now. There is so much of our cultural and perhaps genetic history that lies deep in our subconscious that can be triggered in the right environment. Perhaps even an astrologically induced environment. Thank you for the great video on this and all you have on here as well. I have spent a great amount of time listening to your stuff.
As an actual satanist, I feel like most of these people would be supremely disappointed at how mundane and genuinely compassionate our beliefs are. Many of us regularly hold vigils for the innocent victims of the satanic panic, whatever their beliefs were. It is never okay to hurt someone because of your beliefs, or your feelings about their beliefs. Religious pluralism and a right to bodily autonomy are immensely critical to our beliefs. Actual satanists were rarely the victims in these scenarios, as it would quickly become clear how ridiculous claims of satanic ritual abuse were if we were targeted. Most of us are silly nerds and philosophy majors who like the color black, not violent and angry devil worshipers. We don't even actually believe in satan.
We've been around since the 60's, but nobody goes after us, because we don't fit their narrative.
I like the colour black more than it liked me when I discovered that it tends to attract negative energies.
Shalom
@@theresefournier3269 oh come on! Zen Buddhists wear black. Black is a color of depth and of spaciousness, like the night sky. It doesn’t attract negativity.
@@DionysosThanateros11 Not what Sadhguru said, but it's easy to see why an authentic monk could get away with it, there's no negative vibe to even attract in the vicinity.
KISS (... SIMPLY SIMPLE)
@@DionysosThanateros11
I wouldn't discount they theory. Think about how dark colors absorb light. It may work on the same principle, affecting other energies beyond the EM spectrum.
There are many things outside the understanding of science - such as subtle energies. Nevertheless, there are still mechanisms in place that govern these phenomena.
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Judgement comin'
BITCH
@@thirdworldassassin I know you haven't seen all the "data". And unless you are a first person witness of any abuse, you are nothing more than a schoolgirl gossip disguised as a patriot.
Can The USA all get out of the Schoolyard, and join us at the Grown Ups Table again?
¹×2×
Thank you for sharing what must have been a very difficult time in your young life. Anyone with eyes to see does not need to ask you what happened, just the look in your eyes spoke volumes and in that moment, my heart cried for you. Peace Love and Blessings Brother
Wow Justin. Thank you so much for sharing that. What a fascinating story. Bless you dude.
Wow dude! I have listened to many of your videos and as someone born in the 90s so kinda missing most of this first hand, it’s strange you always hear witch hunts and think of that could never happened today and to hear it was happening across the country 30 years ago is insane. Thank you very much for always sharing your knowledge with us as impartially as possible. Love the content!
Thanks for sharing your story. You don't hear about the victims of these conspiracies nearly enough.
In Bavaria in the early 2000s, where I went to grammar school, our Catholicism teacher (yes, religious study is mandatory in Germany) made us watch a "documentary" about Satanist cults in the US and warned us repeatedly against Satanism. When I spoke out against this, calling it nonsense, he started bullying me and made the entire class bullying me and my few nerd friends. Was a really bad time, but perhaps it helped me dropping religion...
I have to say grew up in the 80s and saw this explode in the church I grew up in. It was mind-blowingly insane. I am so glad my parents held to their wits teaching me to use the same discernment and research to see through craziness. I am a Christian but this madness needs videos and stories to be constantly told about how true mania can cripple a society ruining the lives of so many people. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for doing this video. You are amazing.
Thank you for speaking up and for your personal testimony. Child abuse takes many forms, and the people doing it always manage to convince themselves that they are 'the good guys'. How ironic in this instance that they abuse children, by making them 'remember' things that haven't happened, or by making baseless accusations as they did about you, under the guise of saving them from abuse. Amazing how many abusers come from the church. Yeah, I've got a dog in that fight too.
For a textbook example of the above, complete with all the tropes and roles played out; in a very unreligious antipodean city, read The Devil Over Christchurch by Dr. L. Hood.
The daycare centre was minutes from my house. The poor guy at the center got 5 years. Turned out one of the workers was sleeping with the head detective...who, had fudged an important case the previous year.
I got more insight into the case years later when I met one of the kids who was now a very unhappy and messed up 20 year old.
Normally any men going to jail for anything with a sniff of kids and sex go into segregation. This good bloke went into general and to a man, every prisoner was on his side as most of us could see the bollocks in it.
Thanks for your show Justin.
I was born at the tail end, but I remember the local community center almost confiscating my HP books due to "satanism". I think the only reason they didn't was because I immediately put it away and was known as a good kid.
What they didn't know was that I had a pentacle under my shirt and tarot cards in my backpack!
50 yr old goth kid here. This was right in the feels. Thanks Justin. ❤
Despite not having to share details, I really thank you for doing so. It's so often that the satanic panic stuff gets talked about that you only ever hear about it happening to such and such, and happened a "long time ago" and is over now without realizing that it affected and still affects those still alive today.
I hope you can find some comfort in knowing that your story helped bring things into perspective, and that I want nothing but compassion and healing for you.
Wow. Thanks so much for covering this, Dr. Sledge- it certainly has been very eye-opening.
I am so sorry for everything you and everyone else went through back in the late 90s- really, it sounds like a bloody nightmare. Big hugs from a stranger on the internet.
The shocking thing is that the effects of the Satanic Panic are still reverberating throughout different corners of the internet- I remember being about 16 and living in the Canadian prairies (2011ish) and running into an American evangelical website littered with information about 'the good fight' and all the supposedly demonic imagery popular culture was littered with. It also featured information about Satanic ritual abuse and whatnot.
It was a pretty shocking site, and I still remember feeling sick to my stomach after running into it. If it was out there then, it's probably still out there now, and I can't imagine what more is going on right now.
This was incredibly illuminating. I grew up in the 90's myself. Starting playing d&d in 1998. My dad who raised me during my adolescence, after my mom passed. Never went hard on trying to push religion on me. I've been an atheist since I was 12 years old. But I had friends who I came up through high school with. Who grew up in evangelical Christian households. And their parents straight up thought that they were engaging in devil worship by playing d&d. Is was a crazy time. And when I see the resurgence of the religious right in America. I worry for the future.
Finally, someone from the academia talking about this!! Thank you! The 1990s was a crazy decade in the sense of gang violence, this satanic scare and one of the most ever lasting cases for Lukumi, Regla de Ocha, Palo and Santeria... Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah that took place in 1993. This case forced Santeros, Santeras, Babalawos, Olorishas, and many practitioner to come forward and expose everything of the religion. If it weren't for that case I truly believe we wouldn't see all these channels on RUclips sharing the practices and beliefs of these Caribbean religions based from Africa. Before that case, very little was known about Lukumi, Palo, Santeria, Ifa, Esese, etc. In a way, I am thankful that the Satanic Scare of the 1980s and 90s occurred the way they did... otherwise I wouldn't have known about my great grandfather and his connection to Santeria and similar nature based religions. These religions were meant to be known and shared by the community, not hidden and frightened. There are still elders who are scared of showing their elekes over superstitions that rose from arrogance and ignorance from the times of slavery, which during those times made sense to hide your elekes as to avoid punishment from priests and the catholic slave masters. We don't live those times anymore and we can show our elekes, if we wish to. Anyways funny how the whole Satanic Scare movements only made people want to learn more about other religions outside of Christianity. In a way it actually bought people closer to practices that they actually feel more at home than anything else. The Scare was just more excuse to control peoples' thoughts and actions, as if the school system doesn't do that already. If only those who were responsible for the Satanic Scare from the 1980s and 90s would see how the internet is nowand the diverse movements there are... they explode. 😂 Anyways thank you again over this video. Gives more clarity over what had happened back then.
PS The thing that pissed me off the most about that Scare was how in 1999 people were really pushing that Rammstein and Marylin Manson had something to do with the Columbine Massacre... not realizing that for all we know Eric Harris and Dylan Kledbot were influenced by their parents association and occupation with Lockheed Martin, a company notorious for building weapons to kill people and at that time the Clinton administration involved itself with blowing up aspirin factories at Kosovo. Oh, but that had nothing to do with the massacre, no influence from the adults around those boys' lives that would cause them to shoot their school. 🙄Nope, let us blame Satanic rituals and musicians.
This really brings up some memories. I'm also a child of the 90's. Young Gen Xer. I remember the satanic panic years well. My older brother was the one who was into metal music and dungeons and dragons. I grew up in a bit of a religiously confusing situation. My father's side was Calvinist and very conservative. My mother wanted the social and emotional benefits of a church community but deep down was agnostic. While my father argued with my big brother over mettalica and D&D, my socially awkward preteen self was sent off to youth group. I remember all the "Michelle Remembers" tripe and sensationalist news reports and trials. It was everywhere. Recovered memories, multiple personalities, every drama tween at middle school had a spooky story at the slumber party. Not that my awkward tween self blah blah blah. But my youth group. Oh my youth group. Our youth group/ Sunday school guy. Walt. My poor mom still runs into the asshole every now and then. She has long since outgrown religion altogether. Walt was kinda obsessed with the satanic panic back in the late 80s early 90's, when I was exposed to him. He would show us these highly sensationalist videos. I'm sure all of us here have seen them. Graffiti by teens under bridges or out in woods imitating album art of favorite rock bands shown as proof positive satanic altars or gathering places of massive satanic organized groups. A few old deer bones as evidence of ritual animal or human sacrifice. A random dirty child's diaper as evidence of widespread child molestation. I watched these videos and found them a bit silly. What I found sinister was how Walt spent a lot of time passionately talking about the depictions of crosses between women's legs and how disturbed he was by that. He really talked a lot about the things that were happening to women and girls. I also noticed that he had a whole talk about confused young women literally shoving thier breasts against him at work. To give context: Walt at the time was in a financial crisis and was working at a fast food restaurant with teens. He was literally my parents age, a boomer in the early 90's. So at least mid 30s if not 40s. So I'm not sure exactly why I'm going on about all this. I guess it's to give a gen x perspective. We were all effected. In lots of different ways. We were fascinated. It was interesting, some of us got youth group creeps who obviously got off on describing the lurid imagery under the guise of trying to save our souls. I'm happy that the author of this video took their interest in esoterica all the way to a well versed deep education.
Wow. I heard about the satanic panic. But never knew how bad it really got. I'm sorry you had to live through this trauma. And thank you for sharing this information and your story.
It’s so crazy how the spirits of the past still haunt us. The issues morph over time, but they’re still similar. The past doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Thank you so much for making this video, this is definitely a topic that *needs* to be talked about. It was very brave of you to talk about your own personal experience, and when you are ready I think it would be a good idea to talk to a journalist about it. But, if you're not already, please go see a therapist as well if you are able and feel comfortable doing so!
"If we do not learn from the past, we will be doomed to repeat it" is a phrase I always keep in mind, and considering some of the things occurring currently, I think more people need to hear that phrase, as well.
This was so well done and informative, showing the continuum of some really pernicious destructive ideas. When it's happening, it seems so far-fetched yet motivates horrifying acts against people and against sense and reality. I lived through Satanic panic and see the current madness with even less tolerance. People's stories they've shared here are moving and brave. I actually know someone who still believes the panic was/is real. Thanks to all for your guts and the education! 😊🦋🌹
I've only discovered this channel a couple days ago, and I must say that I am deeply, profoundly grateful for how you present your videos, and the impartiality in their content. It is difficult and frustrating to find good quality content about the esoteric without the content creators trying to sway you toward their religious beliefs. I also have to thank for sharing a part of your story in this video. It must not have been easy to speak about, and I appreciate that you still did anyway. Much respect to you, and keep up the good work.
While I didn't grow up during the Satanic Panic, my parents did (especially my mom), and looking back now, it is interesting to see how their upbringing affected my childhood. I remember once specifically my mom saying that it was okay for my brother and I to play DnD with friends in person, but that we couldn't play DnD with other people online because that's where all the Satanic stuff was. My parents were also the weird ones in church for a while because they were fine with books like Harry Potter and all that jazz. Crazy stuff.
This was one of your best episodes yet, in my opinion. Your scholarship has always been tremendously impressive, and I always find the subject matter inherently fascinating, but the increased social and political relevance as well as your own personal connection to this specific topic made this a particularly engaging video for me. Many thanks!
Wow--this is an amazing episode. Thank you for making it and being willing to open up about your own trauma!
I actually experienced this from both sides. My early teen rebellion against my agnostic academic parents was to become a fundamentalist Christian, though when that ended I became a D&D-playing metalhead. (One of my best friends looked a great deal like Eddie Munson.)
I remember laughing along to a Christian stand-up comedian named Mike Warnke who invented a ridiculous narrative about his bad boy adolescence and eventual position as a "High Priest of Satan." (His college roommate has reported that he was an average student who occasionally skipped class.) Of course, amongst fundy Christians, it's believed that lying is a sin, so you can take the word of any other self-professed Christian as gospel truth.
Later, friends of mine discovered that in their daughter's school file was a brochure about the signs of SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse)--that included drawings of rainbows and unicorns ... They were in danger of losing custody of their child because they liked D&D and Tolkein. It turns out the brochure was provided by local law enforcement, which had no doubt spent taxpayer money to pay an expert to "educate" LEOs about the dangers of Satanism.
Now, as a professional hypnotist, I have to deal with people who still believe one of the false premises of Michelle Remembers: the totally debunked idea that hypnosis can reliably uncover accurate memories. Sorry, folks, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus has demonstrated repeatedly that memory just doesn't work that way, and that fake memories are incredibly easy to induce, with or without formal hypnosis.
Anyway, thanks once again for your brilliant and nuanced treatment of this problem that is once again trying to rear its ugly head.
I still remember getting screamed at at church because I had D&D books. I had to hide them in my school locker after that. This was a crazy time.
BADD was started in my home town. I still want one of those pamphlets.
“…and nearly destroyed my life.”
This hit home. And Im still rebuilding from the destruction. Thank you for speaking on this. You are appreciated.
As someone who lived through this, and dealt with it first hand, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO.
Thank you for this Dr. Sledge. My life was never so deeply impacted by the Satanic Panic as yours or anyone drawn into a public arena, but I absolutely remember it as part of the fabric of that era and the fear that surrounded me. It’s hard not to draw parallels to any sort of witch hunts that our country and western society seems to engage in on a daily basis and open discourse from social media which is constantly blending with media and entertainment. Your piece hits all the right thoughtful and cautionary notes, and while I have always liked you and respected your amazing combination of scholarship and wry wit, I’m so glad for the tiny window you have shared with us in understanding who you are. Thank you very much for everything you bring to your amazing channel.
This was by far one of the best videos on this channel, imo that is.
You had me in tears at the end. Not only with your story but with the truth of what is to possibly come.
I wish the absolute best for you and for all of us, present and future ❤
So eloquently said, Dr. Sledge! May justice be done for all victims of the Satanic Panic of then and of now.
This was such a hard hitting and close to home episode. Being in high school in the early 90s playing D&D and openly learning/practicing Wicca was rough. Without my super supportive mom who knows where I would be today- but it probably would not be here watching you. :) I can relate to everything you spoke of. Many blessings my friend.
Firstly, thank you for your courage, Dr Sledge. It takes a lot to discuss how this horrific social event affected you deeply. And to integrate it into your usual content is truly sharing the knowledge on a personal level. Much respect.
Second, it really shows on the macro level how people in all ages want the easiest answer over actually seeking the real answer.
This is the most thoroughly-researched pieces that I've on this topic. Your presentation is so engaging and accessible; it's wild how much information you pack into under fifty minutes without it becoming dense. Thank you for your work.
I am at a complete loss of words to express the thoughts flooding my mind right now. For the last two or three years I have been a faithful student of this channel and any other place that I found your submissions. I think very highly of your work and have sychonophonic respect for your opinion. I desperately appreciate the hours of such high-quality scholarly research and reporting and have found no source to rival you. The contents of tonight's installment were, of course unknown to me but I am not even really surprised because... of course you did! I seldom get shocked by your choice of topic or sources of research any more because I have learned something of how deeply your mind works and how incredibly well read you are so your being a principle in a criminal case of that magnitude just kind of makes sense, rounding out your sphere of experience nicely. Certainly I would love to ask questions until morning, have you tell me all of the nuanced, repulsive information that are undignified to voice, but I won't. I am content just knowing that your mind has been there and that your editorial productions are framed through it. Trying to find some evidence of this experience in the shadow that is cast in your journalistic style is my job.
Wow...heavy episode. I'm thankful for this channel and your focus on these subjects from an academic perspective and presented as objectively as possible. I think you do a great job of that. It's incredible that you've allowed the energy from that tragic experience to fuel to your passion for studying these subjects further...and eventually to share it with your viewers! Thank you so much for sharing your story.
I remember this vividly. One of my classmates thought I was a witch because I hung out with a girl who used to be one. (I'm not kidding, she modeled her practice from The Craft and was and is an idiot). I was literally an altar girl at the time and teaching Sunday school. This was 98/99 or so. Looking back, I'm grateful for my church being what I would consider normal now and not engaging in the crazy
I’m sorry that happened to you. I was also a victim of false accusations, being the kid who was into occultism( Hermeticism, not satanism, d&d, heavy metal, etc) in the late 80’s while attending a Christian school. I was targeted and expelled after refusing to tow the line and openly debated Christian dogma in my mandatory religious classes.
I was heavily persecuted and labeled evil, satanic, etc even though I had zero affiliation with anything actually of that nature and tried explaining that the “devil” didn’t even exist in the philosophy I believed in and that Satan was nothing more than a Christian archetype and not an actual being.
This started in 87 at the height of the panic.
I had to sit in a “survey of the Bible” class which the teacher used as a platform to do a two week segment on the satanic nature of rock music (of course stairway to Heaven was a centerpiece) where my favorite bands were singled out and I did my best to debate the things being told to the class. D&D was also demonized, and other aspects of the panic were hammered into the class.
It was surreal. It was gas lighting at its best “the things you like are satanic and you’re satanic and you worship the devil” um… no they aren’t, and I most certainly don’t worship or even recognize the actual existence of the “Devil” - oh but you do, we say you do. I lost most of my friends, was persecuted, and ended up removed from the school for standing up for myself. My parents were very angry and threw away all my music and d&d stuff and I wasn’t allowed to hang out with my friends I played it with because the dean and teacher explained that it was linked to satanism.
Well, years later I’m a happy occultist, still don’t worship Satan though…
Sorry this impacted your life as well. You’re much appreciated.
This was a great video, Dr Sledge.
Imma listen to Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil tonight in honor of the subject.
That's a heavy situation you went through - thanks for sharing and you seem to be stronger for it.
Keep up the great work 👏🐢🙏
My dad made me put it in the trash, lol. I was pleased with myself for offended him.
Being accused of satanism myself, this video cut deep. That journey partially drove me to where I am now, an interest in the arcane, history, philosophy and religion. I'm extraordinarily lucky to be able to learn from your videos and I always try to not take anything for granted. Thank you, professor.
I’m so glad your channel exists. Not only are your videos wildly fascinating and full of information, they have also helped me so much in my own writings. I love incorporating religious and mythical symbolism in my poems and I have to thank you for providing in depth coverage of such topics. You’re blessing me with limitless inspiration! 🧡
Such kind words - glad I could help!