Who remembers the "Satanic panic" of the 80s?

[AntivaxHunters]

I came up on this gem just now & wanted to share.
I'm old enough to remember the "Satanic panic" of the 80s & how it went beyond heavy metal music & into things like tabletop gaming.

It struck me reading this article from 1985 & how in many ways what we're going through today is a rehash of what we went through then however this time is far more direct & amplified due directly to the Internet which obviously didn't exist then. The paralells are striking when it comes to trans people & so forth.

High resolution here so it can be read https://imgur.com/a/1cbJniQ]

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

Oak Hill satanic ritual abuse trial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Hill_satanic_ritual_abuse_trial

McMartin preschool trial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial

Between 1984 to 1989, some 100 people nationwide were charged with ritual sex abuse and 50 were put on trial, according to Debbie Nathan of the National Center for Reason and Justice, which works to free those wrongly imprisoned.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-texas-release/texas-frees-daycare-operator-accused-of-satanic-sexual-abuse-idUSBRE9AQ13R20131127

[TheBlackAdder]

36. Remember being at a bar playing Cosmic Wimpout and being told to put it away as they didn't like it.

.



.

[crickets]

95. Someone else who's heard of Cosmic Wimpout! I love that game.

It was a college favorite, lots of fun. Also, it's just five dice and a piece of felt. Amazing that anyone would have a problem with that.

[JHB]

2. Yep. It was pretty galling that people who actually believed in evil spirits...

...(causing disease, mental illness, etc.) were questioning our grip on reality -- and were being taken seriously, because they were "concerned parents" and we were just some "vulnerable" teenagers (who just happened to know the difference between fiction and real life).

A little directed questioning would have exposed them as being across-the-board loopy and undermined their "think of the children" concerns, but tabloid media was never big on that sort of "getting to the bottom of things."


All sorts of this nuttiness get recycled every few years. They switch out some names or topics to make it more contemporary, but it's the same old garbage.

[Shermann]

6. Religion is a form of escapism

Everybody needs an escape from the harshness of the natural world, but religion accomplishes this by transposing it with an imagined supernatural world.

As pure and wholesome as that imagined world may be (itself very debatable), this conflation is problematic and does not create a path to truth.

[NowISeetheLight]

38. Escape

When I want to escape I watch a movie or go on a cruise. I don't choose to believe in the supernatural garbage of organized religion.

[Shermann]

3. Heavy metal/D&D fan checking in

I vaguely recall some mild concern about D&D back in the 80s. It's really laughable now. D&D pen and paper is actually a very social dice game where you have to get your friends together face-to-face to play. It's fun but you can only play so long and be so into it. This is pretty tame when compared to the MMORPG's which came later. Those allow you to get totally immersed in a fantasy world for hours on end by yourself.

The satanic imagery in 80s metal was just a marketing schtick and I was really into Motley Crue early on. But I don't think Vince Neil even knew who Alister Crowley was, he was preoccupied chasing women.

[sarcasmo]

22. "Mr. Crowley, what went on in your head. Oh Mr. Cowley, did you really talk to the dead?"

[Shermann]

33. Well that was Ozzy

His version of Satansploitation didn't make him any more Satanic than the Crue.

Although Ozzy was more convincing and sort of made you wonder.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

59. Finding out that Geezer and Tony were evangelicals was so ironic

Of course there is an old Sabbath song that is pretty blatantly about Jesus and being born again, on Master of Reality or Vol 4….

[orangecrush]

84. +1

[LeftInTX]

86. Didn't he eat the head of a bat one time?

I know he peed on the Alamo while he was wearing Sharon's dress. He was arrested and told not to return to San Antonio.

Years later, he showed up and apologized...

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ozzy-osbourne-bites-head-off-bat-anniversary-1287867/

[AZSkiffyGeek]

91. Yeah, he bit the head off a bat onstage and had to get rabies shots

I think he bit the head off a dove at record exec meeting as well.

[JHB]

4. Ha! I recognize a "Thrud the Babarian" minature

The guy with the axe who's lots and lots of muscle and little little head.

He was a Conan the Barbarian parody comic strip in "White Dwarf", a UK game magazine that was sold in the US as well.

[Elessar Zappa]

5. It ruined a lot of innocent people's lives.

Sadly, many therapists were complicit and or active in the witch-hunt. I was a small child but remember my aunt and uncle being very “concerned” because my cousin was into bands like Slayer, Ozzy Osbourne, and Iron Maiden.

[catrose]

30. People who ran a childcare in my town went to prison for decades

Because of a parent’s baseless accusations. The police interviews with the children are in textbooks now—for how NOT to interview children.

The couple were released recently, broken, elderly, lives ruined.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Didn't know the "National Coalition on Television violence", so googled - oh, the irony

Thomas Edward Radecki (born 1946)[1] is an American former psychiatrist, founding member of the National Coalition on Television Violence, and convicted criminal. He is known for his controversial views on the effects of portrayals of violence on teens and his opposition to depictions of violence in any form. He was later convicted of abusing his position as a doctor to commit sexual offenses; he was accused of trading prescription of opioids in exchange for sex with female patients. He is serving an 11- to 22-year prison sentence.
...
In 1985 Radecki cited a fictitious letter written by a character in the novel Mazes and Monsters as "proof" that the game Dungeons & Dragons had caused the death of gamers.[3] Radecki said in 1987 that "There is no doubt in my mind that the game Dungeons and Dragons is causing young men to kill themselves and others." [4] In 1987 he testified as an expert on the effects of Dungeons & Dragons on behalf of Darren Molitor (convicted of murder in 1985) at an appeal, along with Patricia Pulling. The court rejected his testimony.[5] He also testified in at least 12 other cases, all unsuccessfully.[citation needed]

It later emerged that his claims of being on the faculty of the University of Illinois College of Medicine were based solely in being listed as "clinical faculty" (signifying that he was accredited to practice at a teaching hospital). He continued to claim this faculty status for years after accreditation was removed in 1985.[6]

In March 1992, the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation revoked his medical license for a five-year minimum as a result of "allegations of inappropriate sexual activity by Dr. Radecki with one of his female patients.".[7]
...
In August 2013, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced Radecki's arrest for over-prescribing, trading opioid-addiction treatment drugs for sex[14] through a program he ran in several counties called "Doctors & Lawyers for a Drug Free Youth".[15] In June 2016, he was sentenced to an 11- to 22-year prison term as a result of the case.[16] In February 2018, a judge rejected a request that his sentence be reduced because of his age and because of what Radecki claimed was improperly introduced evidence in his case.[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Radecki

[NowISeetheLight]

40. More Kooks

Like the PARENTS TELEVISION COUNCIL. They could just change their name to CHRISTIAN TALIBAN TV CENSOR COUNCIL.

https://www.parentstv.org/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Television_and_Media_Council

[meow2u3]

8. Republicans indulge in moral panics to scare parents into giving the right their own way

Besides, repukes who believe evil spirits are haunting them are actully summoning them in order to intimidate unstable or not-so-bright minds into voting for them.

[LeftInTX]

9. I think some of it was concern about "bad influences" on kids

Not half as crazy as the stuff that is out there now.
In the 60's, it was "boys with long hair".


I think some of it was sorta of natural concern, not understanding, generation gap and belief that "kids with good morals = adults with good morals". (Dungeons and Dragons was not church, boy scouts, little league etc. Gosh...But looking back, church and boy scouts also weren't as wholesome) It was probably based on beliefs that "if you had your kids in church-based activities they would grow up to be good adults."

Going through phases that are an exageration of reality (such as heavy metal) and fantasy are a normal part of childhood.

I think that daycare trial was crazy and the Memphis Three https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three

Certainly not as crazy as now! Today is just crazy!

The newest is wanting to claim a small town in middle of Texas is into "abortion trafficking"....https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/llano-tables-abortion-ordinance-vote/269-8301a392-4f21-43f4-8b17-61c7ab38e037#:~:text=AUSTIN%2C%20Texas%20%E2%80%94%20The%20Llano%20City,revisit%20it%20a%20later%20date.

Antiabortion advocates behind the measure are targeting regions along interstates and in areas with airports, with the goal of blocking off the main arteries out of Texas and keeping pregnant women hemmed within the confines of their antiabortion state. These provisions have already passed in two counties and two cities, creating legal risk for those traveling on major highways including Interstate 20 and Route 84, which head toward New Mexico, where abortion remains legal and new clinics have opened to accommodate Texas women.

A “baby murdering cartel” was coming for the pregnant women of Central Texas, he recalled telling a group of about 25 Llano citizens in the town library, wearing his signature black blazer and backward baseball cap.

“By trains, planes and automobiles, I say we end abortion trafficking in the state of Texas,” he said.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/01/texas-cities-abortion-trafficking/

There are no trains that go through Llano, there are no commercial flights. LLano is not even on the way to NM or CO. And what on earth are they gonna do? Check to see if there are pregnant women in cars? Also, since abortions are usually performed before a pregnancy shows, how are they going to know if someone driving through is even pregnant? The whole thing is absolutely crazy.

And then getting libraries closed?

I can understand how some people get their panties in a wad over drag shows because they think, "Drag is a vice". But just don't go if you don't want your kids to see a drag show.

Drag shows won't change your kid's gender or turn your kid gay or whatever. ..

Don't close your libraries....Don't ban accepted medical procedures. Don't disrupt normal society....

That's the difference between the 80's and now. They want to get rid of a functional society because they believe that "functional" is ruining kids...They believe that libraries, vaccines, and some medical procedures are now "satanic". At least in the 80's, there wasn't too much belief that the local library and vaccines were satanic.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/01/texas-cities-abortion-trafficking/

Sorry, long rant!!!

[NowISeetheLight]

43. Don't Recall

(Dungeons and Dragons was not church, boy scouts, little league etc. Gosh...But looking back, church and boy scouts also weren't as wholesome) It was probably based on beliefs that "if you had your kids in church-based activities they would grow up to be good adults."

I don't recall reading articles about D&D networks of chold molesters and organized coverups. Churches and the Boy Scouts.... yeah.

[John1956PA]

10. I did not know of the board game. I remember "Mazes and Monsters" and other events.

Thanks for posting. For decades, I was only vaguely aware of the Dungeons & Dragons iteration as a board game. I had it confused with the premise of the 1982 Tom Hanks TV movie "Mazes and Monsters" which portrayed a group of college students acting out (live role playing) scenarios from a board game.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/?ref_=fn_al_tt_11

As for the 1980s satanic scare, yes, I do remember urban legends to the effect that children were being kidnapped and murdered by followers of satanic cults. I remember reports of pentagrams being painted in public areas as signposts for the followers. Yes, as I recall, there was a level of hysteria which for the most part was unfounded.

I also remember the pre-school child-abuse hysteria which sent an innocent young woman to prison for a few years before she was exonerated of charges she had abused children in her care.

Yes, hysteria such as that portrayed in an old "Twilight Zone" episode can be destructive.

[AnrothElf]

18. Yah it's not really a board game... sometimes we call it a "tabletop" game...

But it really depends. In my party, we use the tabletop about 3/4 of the time, with pretty much the identical grid and hand-drawn maps as shown in that old photo. Sometimes we use a "virtual tabletop" like Owlbear Rodeo (https://www.owlbear.rodeo/)

And sometimes we just play in the "theater of the mind" ... we just imagine it!

Really, thinking about it... we play in the "theater of the mind" all the time. The map and minis are really just reference, and only helpful during combat, when distance between characters and monsters, and line-of-sight become factors. The rest of the time it's all talk and imagination.

I first played D&D around 1982, with Brandon O'Doole and his older brothers. Straight outta "Stranger Things".

Now, my oldest son (26) is the Dungeon Master for our party, and the players range in ages from like 22 to my 50. Generational bonding! LOL

We played through the entire "Dungeon of the Mad Mage" campaign. Took 3 years.

Now we're 2 years into "Tyranny of Dragons" ... which is BRUTAL. I'm on my 3rd character and he already died once, and will probably die again on Friday when we face the 3rd and final form of an Ancient Blue Dragon as we attempt to keep Tiamat from invading the Material Plane.

I LOVE THIS GAME!!!

[John1956PA]

21. Thank you for clarifying. Stephen Colbert and Joe Magliano are players.

I watched Colbert's show when Joe was his guest. They had an involved discussion about D&D.

[Efilroft Sul]

87. I've been running a Middle-earth campaign since I was a college sophomore in 1987.

My oldest son is now a college sophomore playing in the same Fourth Age meta campaign, and I have five groups and 20+ players adventuring in the same timeframe but in different regions of Middle-earth. I wouldn't trade this fun for anything.

[mopinko]

11. i had a rotten teenager at the time.

born in 75, but this was def still going around as she hit her teens. being a devout atheist i gave not 1 fuck about the satan thing. but i did worry about big groups of teens doing anything, cuz i was 1 once.
realizing that every gen thinks the next 1 is going to hell in a handbasket, going back all of recorded history, i just swallowed hard and let her make her own mistakes.

i had another kid in 85, then 3 more. i survived the black leather trench coats and d&d and magic and larping and furries. they all grew up to be who they were, for better and worse.

sheltering kids has never worked, but it is a very strong human impulse.

[Martin68]

12. Dungeons & Dragons was not at the center of the Satanic panic. It more often involved accusations

against daycare centers for using the children in their care in satanic rituals. After many lives had been ruined by the false accusations, it turned out that psychologists and psychiatrists who used "memory retrieval techniques" such as hypnosis had tended to ask leading questions that encouraged children to fantasize about ritual abuse and blame their caretakers. People picked up the hysteria from press reports and started "finding" similar abuse in their own communities. It was a classic case of mass hysteria that rapidly spread across the nation.

[Bongo Prophet]

32. Yes, it was just part of a bigger push, and you just described what a "witch hunt" actually is.

The cycle of grift and monetizing of manufactured fear has continued to evolve. We see its modern forms today. Same pattern, similar tactics, similar goals. All for containment and control, money and power.

[Martin68]

44. Many see the Qanon conspiracy theory as just a continuation of the original Satanic Panic, with a

political twist thrown in for good measure. The conspiracy theory of that time never really died out. Another angle, and one that I think has some credibility, is that the whole sensationalized Satanism hysteria served to cover up or take attention away from, some actual generic child abuse in families and child care centers.

[Bongo Prophet]

56. Indeed, projection and distraction. "Look over there!"

Priests
Boy Scout Leaders
Family members
Preachers, youth pastors
Doctors
Foster Parents

Many of the roles in society that are often touted as beyond reproach are the very places where hidden desires and opportunities may meet.

"Well, in simpler times, we just didn't talk about all that. Gosh, we need to go back to those times."

[Trailrider1951]

64. Absolute truth!

I wish I could Rec your post a zillion times!

[Martin68]

81. Yes, it's been an eye-opener to find out exactly what exactly was going on. Maybe the Satanic Panic

was baed on a feeling the something really bad was going on, but how could we blame Catholic priests and Baptist Ministers? Boy Scout leaders? Parents?

[Marcus IM]

13. Now they all growed up and see satan everywhere. That's why they're votin' tRump. eom

[sinkingfeeling]

14. My son was an avid D & D player. He still has hundreds of dollars worth of

the stuff stashed away.

[niyad]

15. The "satanic panic" went far beyond D&D..included the whole satanic

kidnapping and murdering children blood sacrifice nonsense (guess where the current crazies got it?).

The modern-day versions of the Witch Hunts.

[Bongo Prophet]

37. Exactly, well remembered. We saw it in real time.

Oh no, kids building fires in the woods!
Halloween candy laced with razors and LSD!
Playing fantasy games.
reading books.
On and on...

Details at 11!

We must remember history or it will repeat...oh, we already are...repeatedly.

[CaptainTruth]

16. Remember Tipper Gore? Tipper's Tirade against certain bands?

It did end up producing some great testimony from folks like Rob Halford & Frank Zappa.

[dalton99a]

51. +1

A small but immensely successful minority of performers have pioneered the "porn rock" phenomenon. A Judas Priest song about oral sex at gunpoint sold two million copies. So did Mötley Crüe's album Shout at the Devil, with lyrics like: "Not a woman, but a whore/I can taste the hate/Well, now I'm killing you/Watch your face turning blue." Sheena Easton's "Sugar Walls," about female sexual arousal, was an even bigger hit on Top 40 radio stations. And Prince peddled more than ten million copies of Purple Rain, which included a song about a young girl masturbating in a hotel lobby.

This kind of rock music is only part of an escalating trend toward the use of more explicit sex and graphic violence in entertainment industry offerings, from movies and videos to jeans and perfume ads. Music is the most unexpected medium, and rock music has shown perhaps the least willingness to exercise self-restraint.

But in virtually every medium, the communications industry offers increasingly explicit images of sex and violence to younger and younger children. In the course of my work, I've encountered a degree of callousness toward children that I never imagined existed. No one asks what is in the product or its effect on kids, only how well it will sell.

Censorship is not the answer. In the long run, our only hope is for more information and awareness, so that citizens and communities can fight back against market exploitation and find practical means for restoring individual choice and control.

- From "Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society" (1987) by Mary Elizabeth Gore

[Act_of_Reparation]

90. And then Joe Liberman, having learned absolutely nothing, went after video games.

Moral panic isn't the exclusive purview of the right, unfortunately.

[relayerbob]

17. I remember thinking it was idiotic

Of course all those who panicked about it grew older only to vote for the AntiChrist Trump, so go figure

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. The connection is: The Drag-Queen / TG moral panic is similarly way overblown these days. . . . nt

[SouthernDem4ever]

20. Remember the hullaballo about P&G's symbol?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/procter-gamble-satan-conspiracy-theory

[NowISeetheLight]

47. Wow

Never heard of this one. Crazy.

[niyad]

52. How well I remember it! The first time I was told, in a hushed, frightened

voice about it (and heard it many more times, long before the internet), I asked the person why the ceo of P&G would destroy his company on national television. And exactly WHICH afternoon talk show it was. No answer, then or ever. And, of course, no such video has ever surfaced (one would think the crazies could have faked something by now!)

[LeftInTX]

62. It was more of a curiousity than anything. Maybe a five minute segment on the news

It did provide an opportunity to learn about the symbol.

[SouthernDem4ever]

63. You mean just to you or in general?

If you think it was that to everyone you might want to read the story at the link.

[LeftInTX]

70. To me. I remember seeing it on my Crest toothpaste as a kid. Thought it was cool.

But didn't give it much thought because how on earth would I find out? I knew it was the P&G logo. I thought it was a cool logo. Haven't read the link yet.

I remember some stuff, but I remember, I got to finally learn about it. I was busy raising kids at the time, so I really didn't have much time to follow the crazies.

[JHB]

71. The evangelical/fundamentalist community was fountain of this sort of breathlessly-repeated...

..."satanism is all around us!" scaremongering.

"Did you know that KISS (the band) stands for 'Knights In Service of Satan'?!"
"Did you know the hippy 'peace' sign is actually a satanic symbol?!"

And considering how much of Trump's horsedump they gleefully swallow, the tradition is alive and thriving.

[niyad]

76. I remember an idiot informing me that the ankh I had was a satanic symbol.

I responded that it was an Egyptian glyph for eternal life. He insisted that it was satanic he KNEW, because he had seen it on tv, and therefore, it was true. I replied that pee wee herman was also on tv (this was early 90's), did he think that character was real? Then he smirked and said he was sorry that he had upset me. ""oh, honey, you are far too stupid to upset me," I replied. He walked away in a huff.

[IronLionZion]

23. Qanon combines old antisemitic tropes and satanic panic

These are all old concepts rehashed for today's gullible fools who are easily manipulated. There are countless videos of MAGAt/Q fools spouting that so many evil satanic things are happening somehow without a shred of evidence or motive. This has lasted years longer than I had ever expected.

[Elessar Zappa]

26. I did read somewhere

that Q-anon beliefs are declining. I’ll try and find a link.

[IronLionZion]

31. Good, but it evolves into other panics

like anti-Trans people recently, book banning, and more. Some scary bogeyman is coming for your children unless you vote GOP.

[Elessar Zappa]

34. True.

Conservatives always have to have a target for their hate.

[Bongo Prophet]

39. Almost as if they're all the same panic, just...dressed in drag, if you will.

Protocols of the Elders of Manipulation.

[Martin68]

48. Qanon is not declining. The recent movie, "Sound of Freedom," has breathed new life into the whole

rancid mess. Conspiracy theories never die out - they just fester in the shadows among people who aren't mature enough to understand that the world has real problems that need to be solved.

[TheRickles]

24. 40 years later and that Newsweek article reads like a parody.

[QED]

25. KISS Knights In Satan's Service

My nephew was told this at his church summer camp.

[Shermann]

42. W.A.S.P. - We Are Satan's Priests

I actually believed that one. In reality, there was no meaning. The dots duped the audience into solving a puzzle with no single solution.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

58. I always heard We Are Sex Perverts

But there were so many stupid fake acronyms
Ruled Under Satans Hand
Anti-Christ/Devil Child
There were some televangelists who made a lot of money on the Satanic Panic.
There was some Christian comedian/evangelist who made his name as a “former high priest of Satan” who sacrificed kids, or some nonsense before it came out he was a fraud.
I remember another I used to listen to on the radio who would perform on air exorcisms.
Then there was all the nonsense about Proctor and Gamble products containing the mark of the beast.
I used to buy all those Satanic Panic rock music books for a laugh, and to get suggestions of albums to buy.

[Elessar Zappa]

60. My older cousin loved Slayer.

You can imagine the gnashing of teeth by my evangelical aunt and uncle.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

61. My parents thought it was mostly nonsense

But they still side-eyed my listening to Black Sabbath in high school. Which is especially funny because KISS was okay with them when I was like 7.

[progressoid]

27. And the evil backward masking on ROCK AND ROLL records.

https://www.thomann.de/blog/en/play-it-backwards-are-diabolical-messages-hidden-in-songs/

Play It Backwards! Are diabolical messages hidden in songs?


There are myths about many songs that they contain satanic messages when played backwards. For us, Halloween is the ideal occasion to listen more closely to the musical darkness with backward messages in songs. Read more in the following lines… if you dare! ??

[Bongo Prophet]

41. Yep. "We'll tell you what it says, THEN play it."

And, as if by magick, they hear what they were told it would say. Basic psychological manipulation.

[progressoid]

45. I remember some holier-than-thous coming to our church in the 70s to warn us youths of the dangers

of the rock and roll. I was like 12 or 13 and thought, "I gotta listen to this Pink Floyd group! Dark Side of the Moon? That sounds pretty cool"

[Bongo Prophet]

54. Oh yes, the power of the negative recommendation! You had good instincts.

Many discoveries come from people warning you of things that only give birth to discovery.

As an old Alan Parsons song says, "If I had a mind to, I wouldn't wanna be like you."

As an example, I purchased Brain Eno's music after reading a negative Rolling Stone review of his Another Green World album. Pretentious and boring to that old-school conservative Rock critic, to whom the Rock Gods could do no wrong. That sounds great, said this young and open mind.

Many revere the past, then stop exploring, but to some, discovery is the journey, and pretentious often means "outside my comfort zone" to a critic.

And David Bowie's Low album
and Moody Blues or Yes.
Kraftwerk.

Or Miles Davis doing something different from the last thing.
And so ever on...

[chowmama]

28. Oh, God, yes I remember this period

The Twin Cities had a number of problems. One was the rumor that one of our suburbs had a large coven of pedophile Satanists abusing many local children. These children were not being killed, but were identified as being 'one of theirs' by having one of their fingers cut off. (I don't remember which one.)

At the insurance office I worked at, somebody was going on about this and I, fairly blandly, asked if anybody had actually reported a rash of nine-fingered children walking around. Suddenly, I was on the side of the Satanists. Evidence apparently was not a requirement here.

And we had a major daycare scandal that was mishandled so badly that it restructured how children were questioned from then on. It seemed and seems likely that there was one abuser, related to the daycare owner, who was guilty as sin. But the questioning of the kids involved "What happened? Ok, and then what? And then what? Johnny said this, is it true? And then what?"

Kids want to please adults. The first answer was likely true. Afterwards, they agreed with anything they were told their friends said, and when the adults wanted more than they'd supplied, they started making up more. By the time it ended, there were non-existent tunnels extending from the daycare to the airport and they were being flown off to foreign countries to be abused, but being back and in good shape by pickup time in the afternoon.

Obviously, it wasn't true, and it put any possibly true testimony into serious question. The owner and her relative eventually left the state, moved to California (I believe) and...opened up another daycare.

[NowISeetheLight]

49. Jordan Minnesota

Is that the Jordan MN fiasco? I was in HS when that happened. It was crazy. Animal sacrifice too.

Wikipedia has a few paragraphs about it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satanic_ritual_abuse_allegations

[chowmama]

85. It wasn't Jordan, but I remember that one, too.

It was just as badly mishandled. The nine-fingered kids were in a northern suburb, somewhere around Anoka.

And I forgot to mention that we were one of the Ground Zeros for the hypnotherapy Recovered Memory movement. Same period. Like interviewing kids, it's a really valuable technique and valid if done correctly. If you mess it up, you screw the pooch for the entire case. Both techniques were discredited for a while and it took some time before anybody wanted to believe the kids, the women, or any other victim again. I'm not sure hypnotherapy is admissible yet.

Some years later, I was cleaning offices while going back to school. One of the offices dealt in therapy and they were still using the woman who had started the Recovered Memory thing. Note - the cleaners in your office don't have time to spy - but they can't help seeing what you leave out on your desk. We're supposed to dust the area and clean coffee rings; papers are going to be moved. If you don't want it seen, put it the hell away.

Some of this stuff was...Well, I wasn't at all surprised when in a later public interview, she admitted that her personal belief was that all fathers, every one, sexually abused their daughters and that it was her goal to bring them all to justice. She was a piece of work.

It was a crazy time. No shortage of witch hunters, seeing witches every time a cloud passed and every time a leaf twitched. And if you questioned whether any particular conspiracy theory might be slightly over the top, you were The Enemy.

So, I'm not too impressed by this latest crowd. Same song, same lyrics, and it wasn't that good the first time.

[Aristus]

29. I can only wish those moralizing fuzzbrains could have seen what a session of D&D was really like.

"You have to roll for initiative!"

"Nuh-uh! I have a +1 Vorpal blade!"

"You're going to try to seduce an elf when you have a 7 charisma score?"

"Hey guys, is there any pizza left?"

Yeah, real menaces to society...

[niyad]

53. I had a group of friennds who were completely into D&D, and we are talking

people in their 30's and 40's. I tried sitting in on a couple of sessions, could not take the haze of cigarette smoke (at least six of them smoked constantly), and was bored out of my mind. I decided that neither my liver, nor my lungs, nor my sanity, could take it.

[Aristus]

55. You were right to get out of there, and I'm sorry you had an unpleasant experience.

The constant smoking was just bad manners. But if the game was boring, that was the fault of the Dungeon Master, to whom the responsibility of creating and managing an interesting and exciting session falls. I played in some very exciting and challenging games when I was a kid. Not a single one of us decided to kick things up a bit with child kidnapping, or human sacrifice, or whatever the hell else the Puritanical idjits of America were accusing us of.

As a nerd who got bullied a lot in school, I was happy to see nerd culture go mainstream; but dismayed to see that in many ways, it was just as misogynistic as the jock culture we all hated so much.

I was in an all-guy D&D group for a while, and I guess we were pretty progressive for the time. When we discovered an all-girl D&D group at our school, we thought we'd died and gone to Heaven. We played a few campaigns together as a mixed group, and never once did the guys in our group think it should be a 'no girls allowed' kind of thing.

[niyad]

65. It was just something I never got into, as I do not with many popular things.

But, we were all pagans, in fundieville, and had lots of fun annoying the righteous every chance we got. On one memorable birthday of mine, we celebrated at a rock nightclub (which gave free cake and a bottle of bubbly), all fully cloaked and staved. We were not that noticable coming in singly, and the ritual items looked fairly inocuous as part of the celebration. But we left as a group, all wearing our cloaks and hats, carrying our staffs. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, and then wondered about the unexpected blizzard when they were leaving.. oooops. . .

[Aristus]

67. HA! That's a memorable birthday!

[meadowlander]

74. There's nothing wrong with being into D&D in your 30s and 40s.

It's not that different from any other tabletop game or video game. It's a good as the group of friends you play it with and mostly just an excuse to hang out and eat junk food.

My Mom, in her 70s!, has movie night with her Aquarobics friends and bridge night with ex-coworkers which serves exactly the same purpose. Why dump on someone else's hobbies? I'm sure there's things you do that other people would judge as "immature" but frankly if you enjoy it, it's none of their business.

In this day and age, I think anything that gets people unglued from their phone and interacting with other actual human beings should be seen as a net positive.

[niyad]

78. WOW. You read an awful lot into that post that I did not say. Why is that?

Nowhere did I "dump on" it, or my friends, so your post is really quite illuminating, although possibly not as you intended. I simply said it bored me, as many popular pasttimes ( including all sports), do. To each their own.And, amazingly enough, I truly do not give a flying fart in space (thank you, Lord Henry Dashwood) what others, especially strangers, think about me, or my choice of activities or interests..

[meadowlander]

83. Why did you feel the need to say

"and we are talking people in their 30s and 40s" if not to imply that there is something wrong with people in their 30s and 40s playing D&D? What does that add to your post other than clear scorn for people who enjoy this particular game as adults?

[emulatorloo]

35. Kick

[prodigitalson]

46. that was during my middle school/high school years

I was (am) a hard rock/metal/punk fan in the deep deep rural south.

so yeah, I remember it well.

[hunter]

50. The minions of Satan I most commonly encountered in those days called themselves "Christians" and...

... went to church every Sunday.

I got knocked around pretty hard by some of these people and their twisted beliefs.

Religious "tolerance" is not a good thing. I do not respect unkind, unloving, anti-intellectual, authoritarian religions. I do not respect people who worship cruel and capricious gods.

These religious extremists become increasingly dangerous as they perceive popular belief and tolerance for their filthy gods fading away.

[Polybius]

57. I remember not being allowed to get the Dungeons & Dragons board game

My mom thought it made kids commit suicide. I'm still pissed that I never got to play it as a kid in the 80's.

[bigmonkey]

66. Our Chicago D&D group hosted a Newsweek reporter

One of my first experiences with the prejudices of the media. The time-frame was right before this article, and the satanic panic was something we were all aware of. We set up a demonstration for him, with the intention of showing him what playing the game actually was like, but he left after about 15 minutes. He seemed really disappointed that there were no lurid, occult elements for his report; in their absence he had no interest.

[hatrack]

72. Dark Dungeons!!!

?

[JHB]

94. I had one of my parish priests nervously asking me about D&D with one of those in hand

("those" being the Jack Chick tract "Dark Dungeons&quot . I would guess one of the parishioners encountered one and gave it to him. I was at the tail end of my stint as an altar boy, and he knew I played the game.

By that time I'd encountered numerous JC tracts in the bookstores I frequented (left on top of books on a shelf) -- enough that I'd started collecting them.

I showed the priest a couple of the anti-Catholic ones, and that pretty much settled things. Abundant reason to place them in the "out of their ever-living gourds" category.

[JCMach1]

68. In grad school they were doing LEO courses on essentially Satanism in crime

I am NOT kidding. This was ca. 1990 in FL. I won't say which University to save them the embarrassment.

[GPV]

69. The fundies came for our D&D with a stupid game called "Light bringers," where we fought evil by

Last edited Mon Sep 11, 2023, 05:20 AM - Edit history (1)

quoting Bible verses.

[meadowlander]

73. I played D&D in the 80s

and one of my friends' uber-Evangelical mother forbid her to ever speak to me.

Happy to report 35 years later my friend is a neo-pagan poetry professor and hasn't spoken to her mother since she graduated high school.

[Maeve]

75. Remembering Michelle...the book that fueled the flames

Read it at the time and almost believed it. It sounded so real...but people can convince themselves of horrible things, if they try
And today rhymes with then

[struggle4progress]

77. An evil spirit stalked the country: Reagan was elected and re-elected, despite

the record-breaking corruption of his gang; Newt began his own ascent to power; and a malignant narcissist named Trump started to appear in the news

[LeftInTX]

79. Yep! Along with "Just say No"!

[struggle4progress]

82. "Let's smuggle drugs for the contras!" Just say no!

[Archae]

80. Yes, it was really nasty.

Especially the "demonic" places.

[JHB]

88. The part of it that ruined the most lives was the scaremongering about day care...

...and the false accusations, questionable "investigation" techniques, and fraudulent "expert" testimony that put people behind bars, or made them pariahs it they managed to be cleared.

Remember the time: many women were entering the work force, including mothers. Wages had begun stagnating, so families were seeking second incomes. Even at higher incomes, it was the era of the "Supermom" who could "bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan."

The need for reliable day-care was soaring, which terrified religious conservatives: to them, women belonged in the home (ONLY!), not working outside it. They railed against any proposal for publicly-supported day care.

Naturally, once "satanic day care abuse" flared up somewhere, the whole mass seized upon it to undermine the idea of day care in general and any public programs in particular.

So yes, it all circles back to "controlling women."

[Archae]

92. The McMartin case began this way...

A woman with paranoid schizophrenia accused her ex-husband and Ray Buckey of molesting her preschool son.

It snowballed from there.

[apnu]

89. Me and my knuckles and knees.

Those nuns were mot nice when they found the Monster Manual and the DMG in my school bag.

[Xolodno]

93. Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons was a devout Christian. Go figure.

In an interview, he stated he couldn't really understand why people of faith demonized his fantasy game. But he was happy for people who said they found "God", but still couldn't wrap his head around it..

I was struggling in Junior High with my classes, but after I joined the DnD club for afterschool, my grades went up. But then my religious zealot parents forbade me to play....and my grades tanked again. All because of some religious nut they saw on TV. I didn't even go tricker treating when they did as kids. Birthday party? Nope, despite they had them when they were young. But my grandmothers rectified that, one would make sure I got plenty of clothes and toys, the other would take me out to Farrells, which I would do the wink and not mention it to my parents. Sometimes I wonder if they secretly collaborated.