#moral panic

Now, "most likely" doesn't mean "guaranteed." Stranger kidnappings are very rare, but not nonexistent. More prosaically, the person could be dead, or unconscious in a hospital.

But the most likely scenario is that the person could choose to go back to their family of origin if they wanted to, and they don't want to. The most likely scenario is that they don't want to be under their family's control. And the fact that their family turned this decision into a "missing person" case is further evidence that the decision was an entirely reasonable and rational one.

If you say this, you will be called a horrible monster. You will be told that you're heartless for not caring about a vulnerable person who could be in danger! Or you'll be told, "Okay, maybe this person left of their own volition, but someone should at least check and make sure, just in case" -- which presumes that alerting an escapee's abusive family to their whereabouts is an outcome with no downsides. And if you say that, you'll be told you're cruel and heartless for "assuming with no evidence" that those poor, suffering, heartbroken parents are abusive. But here's an easy tip: Controlling someone's medical choices is inherently abusive. So if they're trying to control the person's medical choices (forced drugging, involuntary commitment, conservatorship, or just using "off their meds" as a reason the person needs to be controlled), then you're not assuming anything with no evidence -- you know for a fact that they're abusive!

To be clear: I said "young adults," but this is also by and large true of runaway minors. Many, many "missing and exploited children" are just young people who made the rational choice to escape their abusive parents and couldn't wait for the magic birthday to do so.

Parents generally have a legal right to reclaim their runaway minor children (to be extremely clear, this is a bad law and I oppose it). But there's a specific way that parents use the pretext of a "missing persons case" to end-run around their adult children's right to leave. If you went to the police station and said "My 20 year old child moved out of my house and won't return my calls," they'd say "Well, she has a right to do that." But if you say, "No, she's VULNERABLE and has SPECIAL NEEDS and is OFF HER MEDS and is in MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS and she TURNED OFF HER PHONE TRACKER," then suddenly you can have a search party out looking for someone who does not want to talk to you, let alone live with you.

This game is an AMAZING way to explore so many issues related to censorship.

People need to understand what this game actually was, what happened, and what the impact is...

...And God knows I am not the best person to do it lol. But I have to at least try.

Let's explore this situation step-by-step:

(Part 1) What is the game and what do people think it is?

What if the horror of Stranger Things Season 4 wasn’t just supernatural, but profoundly historical? What if the show’s depiction of hysteria, moral panic, and persecution mirrored one of the darkest chapters of modern American history—the Satanic Panic of the 1980s?

This essay is the result of extensive research and careful analysis, connecting the real-world moral frenzy that swept across the United States with the fictional chaos unfolding in Hawkins. Beyond the monsters and the Upside Down lies a disturbing truth: Stranger Things doesn’t simply borrow from nostalgia—it reflects the collective fears, cultural repression, and social mechanisms that defined the decade it portrays.

Throughout this exploration, I retrace the true origins, evolution, and consequences of the Satanic Panic—how the media, political figures, and even mental health professionals fueled a nationwide paranoia that destroyed lives under the guise of moral protection. And once you begin to uncover the shocking parallels between these historical events and the storylines of Season 4—the demonization of Dungeons & Dragons, the fear of nonconformity, the vilification of outsiders, and Eddie Munson’s tragic fate—you’ll start to see Stranger Things in an entirely new light.

This isn’t just about pop culture analysis; it’s about understanding how fiction reflects reality—and how the real evil often hides not in monsters, but in the fear that drives ordinary people to destroy what they don’t understand. So if you think you already know what Stranger Things is about, keep reading. The truth behind the Satanic Panic might just change the way you see the entire series.

When we speak of the Satanic Panic, we are referring to a moral panic that emerged primarily in the United States during the 1980s. At its core, this panic was a collective fear that supposedly occult or satanic activities posed a threat to society as a whole. It gained widespread traction as rumors of satanic ritual abuse—often involving children—began circulating throughout the country. Yet, before this wave of hysteria took hold, we must first return to its historical roots.

Back to 1966: That year, Anton LaVey officially founded The Church of Satan, introducing the satanic figure into modern American culture. But 1966 also marked the onset of the American credit crisis. In a period of economic and social instability, the emergence of a religion like LaVeyan Satanism—an anti-religion centered on the carnal nature of humanity—deeply alarmed puritanical circles. These groups feared for the spiritual salvation of the population.

New religious movements soon became the target of public condemnation, particularly from televangelists—religious preachers who used television as a platform for mass evangelization. Their warnings, amplified by the media and prominent public figures, painted these movements as anti-Christian, cannibalistic, and sacrificial cults allegedly engaging in torture and incestuous orgies. The release of Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 only intensified these anxieties. The film depicted the fears of a middle-class woman who suspects her neighbors of belonging to a satanic cult intent on stealing her baby. Once again, the narrative played directly into the anxieties of the white Christian American family, reinforcing the notion that these new religions were a threat to domestic and moral stability.

In 1969, the brutal murders committed by Charles Manson’s so-called “Family” horrified the world. The ritualistic framing of these crimes became one of the most sensationalized aspects of the case. Meanwhile, profound social transformations were reshaping American society. The 1960s and 1970s were defined by movements for civil rights—such as the rise of the Black Panther Party—alongside the first Pride marches, the legalization of abortion, the growing number of women entering the workforce, and the liberalization of divorce laws. Conservative religious groups interpreted these shifts as evidence of a moral decline, which they claimed was responsible for the nation’s economic and social crises.

In this context, these groups began to search for scapegoats. One final detail is essential to understand what came next: the transformation of the traditional American family also led to a surge in childcare centers, as dual-income households became more common. Entrusting one’s children to institutions and strangers, however, remained an underlying source of anxiety—and that fear would soon be exploited by those who stood to gain from it.

In 1972, a peculiar book was published: The Satan Seller. Written by American evangelist Mike Warnke, it purported to recount how the author had been initiated into Satanism during his childhood. Warnke described, in vivid detail, his alleged participation in sexual orgies, drug trafficking, and occult ceremonies. He claimed to have risen to the rank of High Priest of Satanism, taking part in rituals involving magic spells, demonic invocations, and sexual rites that included abduction and rape. Fortunately, according to Warnke, his deployment to Vietnam allowed him to rediscover Jesus and renounce his dark past.

Unsurprisingly, The Satan Seller became a bestseller in less than three months. Numerous Christian media outlets—such as Moody Monthly and The Christian Century—endorsed Warnke’s testimony, lending his book an air of legitimacy in the public eye. His assertion that he had personally led a network of nearly 1,500 Satanists further fueled the growing belief that Satanic cults were spreading throughout America.

However, spoiler alert: the book and its alleged firsthand accounts of Satanic rituals were eventually debunked. Many individuals who had known Warnke personally, along with several media investigations—including one by the evangelical magazine Cornerstone—exposed his story as a fabrication. Unfortunately, this debunking came two decades too late. By then, the damage had already been done.

In 1973 and 1976, two films would leave an indelible mark on popular culture: The Exorcist and The Omen. The first shocked audiences with the possession of a young girl; the second portrayed the rise of the Antichrist, aided by a secret cult. Amidst these cultural tremors, a couple of self-proclaimed paranormal investigators began to attract national attention: Ed and Lorraine Warren. Following their alleged involvement in the Amityville case, the Warrens were presented as divine warriors combating an encroaching darkness.

With the recent emergence of LaVeyan Satanism and the fascination it inspired among the curious and the rebellious, all of society’s moral anxieties now found a convenient scapegoat. Every social ill—from crime and corruption to the erosion of family values—could now be laid at the feet of “Satan.”

In August 1979, an event occurred that would leave a lasting mark on the United States. James Dallas Egbert III, a university student hailed as a child prodigy, mysteriously disappeared in Michigan. When police efforts failed to locate him, his family hired a private investigator after two weeks. This investigator would become the first to discover that Egbert had been a player of Dungeons & Dragons.

At the time, the game—first published in 1974—sold only about a thousand copies per month. It was still considered an obscure, underground pastime. The detective speculated that Egbert had been exploring the steam tunnels beneath his university to play a live-action version of the game, and that he had vanished during one such session. With no concrete evidence to support this claim, several media outlets nonetheless seized upon the theory, presenting it as fact.

Eventually, Egbert himself reached out to the detective, who found him alive in Louisiana. It was later revealed that he had indeed entered the university’s tunnels—but with the intention of taking his own life. After surviving the attempt, he had gone into hiding, moving between the homes of various friends. Further investigation revealed that his disappearance stemmed from profound psychological distress: he suffered from depression, an addiction to methaqualone, intense academic pressure, and inner turmoil over his attraction to men—something he had never felt safe enough to disclose to his family.

Despite these facts, both the media and his mother attributed his troubles to Dungeons & Dragons. Tragically, Egbert took his own life the following year. Ironically, his story caused sales of Dungeons & Dragons to quadruple between 1979 and 1980.

Yet even amidst these shifting social dynamics and growing anxieties over children’s safety and the new pastimes of adolescents, one single event would push American society over the edge into what would later be known as the Satanic Panic.

That event was the publication of a book — Michelle Remembers.

We are now in 1980. That year, Ed and Lorraine Warren released their bestselling book The Demonologist, a biographical account of their alleged paranormal investigations from the 1950s to 1980. In it, they wrote the following passage:

“The fundamental problem is that this century has witnessed a major collapse of religion, which means a major collapse in the teaching of mystical knowledge, so that once again, people must learn by error. While millions of people play with fire by dabbling in the occult, other quasi-religious cults operate in America—some invoking negative spirits to serve as their ‘guides’ through life. At an even darker extreme, there are groups actively engaged in the rituals of black witchcraft; not to mention Satanists, who evidently prefer the ‘buttocks of Satan to the face of Jesus.’ There are probably more people practicing black witchcraft today than at any other time in history.”

The Warrens, whose careers thrived on public fascination with the supernatural, exploited the emerging Satanic Panic to promote their work—and, in many ways, their deceptions. Yet it must be understood that the panic which would soon engulf the 1980s ultimately proved beneficial to their reputation and their business.

However, The Demonologist was not the publication that truly defined the decade. That distinction belongs to Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient—later his wife—Michelle Smith. The book was based on a series of hypnotherapy sessions conducted over fourteen months, totaling more than six hundred hours. It purported to unveil Michelle’s “repressed memories” of childhood experiences with Satanic ritual abuse in Victoria, Canada, during the 1950s.

According to the account, at the age of five, Michelle was subjected to torture by her own mother for eighty-one consecutive days as part of “elaborate Satanic rituals.” At the climax of these ceremonies, a portal to Hell supposedly opened, and Satan himself appeared—only to be banished by the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael. Conveniently, no physical evidence of abuse was ever found, which the book attributes to a miracle performed by the Virgin Mary, who allegedly erased all traces of Michelle’s suffering.

Michelle Remembers described months of imprisonment in a basement, acts of human sacrifice, and demonic invocations—all presented as authentic recollections recovered through therapy. The book served as a catalyst for the Satanic Panic, as it was marketed not as fiction, but as a genuine psychological and spiritual testimony. Pazder even coined the term “ritual abuse” to describe these supposed Satanic practices involving children.

Published amid a wave of moral and religious conservatism, the book was immediately embraced by right-wing media and religious groups more concerned with moral decline than with verifying its authenticity. Yet, upon its release in November 1980, journalists and academics began to publicly challenge its credibility. Within months, outlets such as Maclean’s magazine published investigations revealing inconsistencies between Michelle’s stories and the testimonies of neighbors, teachers, and family members.

For instance, there was no record of any prolonged absence from school that could match the period during which Michelle claimed to have been held captive. A 1955–56 yearbook from St. Margaret’s School even included a photograph showing a healthy, smiling Michelle—precisely at the time when she claimed to have been imprisoned in a basement. Furthermore, Michelle’s own father and sister openly rejected the veracity of the account, a stance which, paradoxically, only deepened public suspicion toward them rather than discrediting the story itself.

In essence, from the moment of its publication, no tangible evidence supported the veracity of Michelle’s “recovered memories.” To make matters worse, the first edition of Michelle Remembers directly accused Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan of being responsible for the rituals described. LaVey promptly threatened to file a defamation lawsuit, after which Pazder quietly removed the accusation from subsequent editions.

Beyond the absence of evidence, experts had already warned of the dangers of Pazder’s therapeutic methods. Memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus was among the first to publicly denounce “recovered memory” therapy and the use of suggestive hypnosis, publishing studies and giving lectures throughout the early 1980s on how such techniques could easily produce false memories.

From an ethical standpoint, the situation was equally troubling: Pazder not only turned Michelle into his patient but later married her—despite a thirteen-year age difference—illustrating a clear abuse of professional authority. Similarly, experimental psychologist Nicholas Spanos published several early-1980s studies emphasizing the subjective and unscientific nature of memory-retrieval hypnosis, underscoring the lack of empirical validation for any of its so-called “discoveries.”

But at the time, the voices of scientific experts were largely ignored. Instead, self-proclaimed “moral authorities” began to dominate public discourse. They appeared on television talk shows and news programs, warning of hidden cults, Satanic symbols, and child sacrifices. The media, once again, amplified the panic—turning speculation into “truth,” and fear into fact.

In 1982, the CBS network delivered yet another blow to Dungeons & Dragons with the release of a made-for-television film adaptation of Rona Jaffe’s novel Mazes and Monsters—itself loosely inspired by the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, whose story we discussed earlier.

The film follows a group of four college students who regularly play a tabletop role-playing game. Eventually, they decide to take their fantasy adventures into the real world through live-action sessions. Robbie Wheeling—the character portrayed by a very young Tom Hanks—gradually loses his grip on reality, blurring the boundaries between his in-game persona and his actual life. This psychological unraveling culminates in a breakdown and his disappearance.

Unsurprisingly, the film reignited public debate about the psychological impact of role-playing games on young people. Many came to believe that exposure to such games—and their supposed engagement with occult themes—could lead vulnerable minds toward Satanism.

As a result, popular belief in the existence of a secret network of Satanic cults abusing children through occult rituals grew even stronger. Parents began to fear not only for their children’s hobbies, such as role-playing games, but also for the safety of schools, daycare centers, and even their own neighborhoods.

It is within this context that we arrive in 1983 — a pivotal year in the history of the Satanic Panic. That year, Judy Johnson, the mother of a young student at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, reported to the police that her son had been sexually assaulted by her estranged husband as well as by Ray Buckey, a teacher at the McMartin Preschool and the grandson of its founder, Virginia McMartin. Mrs. Johnson’s conviction that her child had been abused began when her son started experiencing painful bowel movements. She subsequently filed a complaint against the school, alleging that it was harboring a pedophilic network.

This marked the beginning of what would become the longest, most influential, and most expensive trial in American history. The police sent a form letter to roughly two hundred parents whose children attended McMartin Preschool, warning them that their children might have been victims of abuse and urging them to question them at home.

In 1984, Lawrence Pazder — whose book Michelle Remembers had already popularized the notion of satanic ritual abuse — was brought in as a consultant for the prosecution, lending further credibility to the accusers’ claims. Shortly thereafter, over one hundred preschools across the United States faced similar allegations, which were reported with sensational enthusiasm and little critical scrutiny by the media.

The Children’s Institute International then conducted its own interviews with the children who had attended McMartin. Many of the resulting accusations were extraordinarily bizarre, echoing the growing public hysteria surrounding satanic ritual abuse. It was claimed that, in addition to sexual assault, the children had witnessed witches flying, taken hot-air balloon rides, and been led through secret underground tunnels — halfway between The Wizard of Oz and The Goonies.

The problem, however, was that these videotaped interviews were later found to be in violation of California’s official guidelines for investigations involving minors. According to Dr. Michael Malone, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry, the interrogations were “inappropriate, coercive, leading, problematic, and adult-oriented in ways that pressured the children to conform to a predetermined narrative.” He concluded that:

“Many of the statements made by the children during the interviews were generated by the interviewer.”

The problem, however, was that Pazder and Smith — buoyed by the success of their book — came to be regarded as legitimate experts and were soon consulted by American law enforcement and social service agencies. They began delivering lectures to train officials on how to identify and prove the existence of alleged satanic networks. Pazder’s preferred method, that of so-called “recovered memories,” quickly became a cultural and therapeutic phenomenon, spreading rapidly among psychotherapists and trauma specialists. All the necessary elements were now in place for the Satanic Panic to swell into a full-blown moral tsunami — one that would leave a devastating trail in its wake.

From that point on, the stage was perfectly set for a massive conspiracy theory to emerge. Television programs — especially those aimed at children — came under scrutiny. In 1983, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe made its debut on American television. To a growing faction of religious puritans, it was nothing short of a satanic work designed to lead children away from God.

That same year, a woman named Patricia Pulling became one of the key figures responsible for amplifying this moral panic. She joined forces with psychiatrist Thomas Radecki, then director of the National Coalition on Television Violence, an organization founded in the late 1970s with the stated mission of combating televised violence, particularly in children’s programming. Together, they established BADD — Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons.

BADD positioned tabletop role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons, as instruments of satanic recruitment that allegedly drove young people to suicide, murder, and ritual abuse. This conviction, however, did not emerge from nowhere. On June 9, 1982, Patricia Pulling’s son took his own life. Although the investigation into his death revealed several instances of severe bullying that had led to depression, Pulling became convinced that her son’s suicide was in fact linked to Dungeons & Dragons.

She filed a lawsuit against the school principal for permitting the creation of a D&D club — a case that was swiftly dismissed. She then sued TSR, the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons — again, unsuccessfully. Out of these rejections, BADD was born. Through this organization, Pulling began publishing pamphlets and essays propagating her belief that D&D promoted satanism and suicide.

In one such publication, she described Dungeons & Dragons as:

“A fantasy role-playing game that employs demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sexual perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic-type rituals, gambling, barbarity, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromancy, and other practices.”

And, of course, with every teenage suicide, every family tragedy, every school shooting, BADD would reappear in the media to highlight Dungeons & Dragons’ alleged influence in these events — even when no connection whatsoever existed.

Meanwhile, in 1983, another movement was born: the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). It was founded by four women — Tipper Gore, Susan Baker, Pam Howar, and Sally Nevius. The catalyst came the previous year, when Tipper Gore bought her eleven-year-old daughter a copy of Prince’s Purple Rain. Upon hearing the song “Darling Nikki,” she was scandalized by its explicit sexual references. Around the same time, Susan Baker expressed similar outrage after discovering Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”

The four women, soon dubbed by the media the “Washington Wives,” launched a moral crusade of their own — this time targeting the music industry. They quickly garnered massive support from America’s conservative Christian community, bolstered by their social status as white, affluent women married to influential men in Washington’s political and financial elite.

Their stated mission was to raise parental awareness about the presence of sexual, violent, and drug-related content in popular music. To that end, they compiled the now-infamous “Filthy Fifteen” — a list of fifteen songs they deemed particularly offensive or morally corrupt, some even explicitly “satanic.” Among these were “Into the Coven” by Mercyful Fate and “Possessed” by Venom, both accused of promoting occultism.

The list was widely circulated through national newspapers, and the PMRC demanded that record labels cease releasing music containing “immoral” material. After a prolonged standoff with the music industry, a compromise was reached: albums deemed explicit would bear a label reading “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics.” (Yes — the very sticker still found on countless albums today originated from this controversy, and notably, it was introduced without the artists’ consent.)

Ironically, this campaign only made such albums more appealing to teenagers of the time. Yet, the PMRC’s crusade did not stop there — the group also sought to vilify heavy metal, claiming the genre was violent and that it drove adolescents to suicide, satanism, drug use, and even pornography consumption (as though one needed music for that).

The real danger, however, lay in how these narratives spread. Such claims were reinforced through “awareness seminars” — public meetings led by self-proclaimed experts or alleged survivors of satanic abuse. These sessions targeted not only parents and educators, but also law enforcement officers.

Consequently, an alarming number of Americans became convinced that a vast satanic network existed — one that murdered thousands each year in occult rituals and used popular culture and youth education as tools to recruit new members or future sacrifices. According to this growing paranoia, the reason no one spoke out was because Satanists had infiltrated the media and the highest levels of government. Even more absurd theories suggested that Satanists had taken over funeral homes and crematoriums to dispose of bodies legally and undetected.

As a striking example of this propaganda, BADD released in 1984 a short comic pamphlet titled “Dark Dungeons.”Designed as a cautionary tract, it portrayed role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons as gateways to occultism, moral decay, and death. Over time, this bizarre publication became a cult artifact within the role-playing community, inspiring numerous parodies and adaptations.

In 1986, social worker Carole Darling testified during a court case that a vast conspiracy had infiltrated the United States government itself. Her husband, Brad Darling, went on to give a series of public lectures asserting that a Satanic cabal had existed for hundreds of years and was now deeply embedded within virtually every American community.

Among the many theories circulating at the time, one particularly grotesque claim suggested that the reason more women than men were reported missing was because Satanists were using their bodies for forced breeding — producing infants to be sacrificed in occult rituals. Disturbingly, such ideas gained traction. Some therapists began incorporating explicitly Christian psychotherapies or even performing exorcisms on patients they believed might have been affected by ritual abuse. Support groups sprang up, led by self-proclaimed “anti-Satanic warriors,” while the entire movement was indirectly legitimized by government policy: federal funding for child abuse research increased significantly, with portions of that money allocated to conferences promoting the belief in ritualistic Satanic crimes. It became a self-perpetuating cycle of fear and confirmation.

Then, in 1988, television host Geraldo Rivera aired a sensational two-hour NBC special titled “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground.” Broadcast nationwide, the program presented the supposed existence of Satanic networks committing ritual crimes. The show featured alleged survivors, self-proclaimed experts, police officers, musicians, and even individuals identifying as Satanists. At one point, Rivera declared — and I quote —

“By conservative estimates, there are more than one million Satanists in this country, and they are linked together in a highly organized, secretive network.”

Once again, such programming reinforced and legitimized the widespread belief in a vast Satanic conspiracy, further fueling America’s growing moral panic.

In 1989, nearly a decade after the publication of Michelle Remembers, Oprah Winfrey invited Michelle Smith onto her talk show alongside Lauren Stratford, author of Satan’s Underground, a book describing her alleged survival of ritualistic Satanic abuse. The experiences of both women were presented by Oprah as unquestionable facts; not once did she challenge or scrutinize the authenticity of their claims.

The following year marked the long-awaited conclusion of the McMartin Preschool trials. After seven exhausting years, the case resulted in no convictions, and all charges were ultimately dropped. It remains the longest and most expensive criminal trial in United States history, with legal costs exceeding fifteen million dollars. Yet, despite the total absence of evidence or substantiated allegations, conspiracy theories only escalated in complexity. A new narrative began to circulate: that a Satanic cult composed of powerful and respected figures within society had orchestrated a mind-control program designed to create alternate personalities in unsuspecting individuals — personalities that could be activated through coded words. This program, the theory claimed, was managed by a former Nazi doctor, allegedly of Jewish descent, who had been recruited by the CIA. The logic was as outrageous as it was implausible — and yet, somehow, it spread.

According to proponents, victims of this program were trained to become assassins, prostitutes, drug traffickers, or even child sex workers on command, explaining their “missing” memories by attributing them to separate identities. This sensational claim reached the public sphere through psychologist Corydon D. Hammond, who asserted that he had uncovered this information from his patients while they were under hypnosis.

Fortunately, scientific inquiry soon began to challenge these narratives. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) appointed psychologist Gail Goodman of the University of California to lead a comprehensive research project titled Characteristics and Sources of Allegations of Ritualistic Child Abuse. As principal investigator, Goodman conducted a rigorous four-year study examining no fewer than 12,000 allegations of ritualistic or religion-related abuse.

In her 1993 report, she concluded — and I quote:

“There is no evidence of a well-organized, intergenerational Satanic cult that sexually abuses and tortures children.”

However, Goodman clarified that there were indeed credible cases involving isolated offenders or couples who either claimed to act in Satan’s name or used that claim to intimidate their victims. In other words, while instances of abuse committed under a supposed “Satanic” justification did occur, investigations revealed no genuine affiliation with any organized Satanic group. At best, these were pseudo-Satanic ritual abuses — perpetrators invoking Satan ex post facto as a form of psychological or symbolic justification. To put it simply: saying “the devil made me do it” does not make one a Satanist.

This raises an essential question: how could Goodman have investigated over 12,000 allegations of ritual or religious abuse and still found no verifiable evidence of genuine Satanic activity? The answer lies in examining the sources themselves — which, as she notes, stemmed almost entirely from two categories:

Children’s testimonies describing alleged ritual abuse;

Adults’ “recovered memories,” retrieved through hypnosis or suggestive therapeutic techniques.

It has been established that in approximately 95% of adult cases, memories of alleged abuse were recovered during psychotherapy — and in most instances, these were therapies specifically designed to elicit recollections of satanic ritual abuse. Unfortunately, the claims obtained from the so-called victims by mental health practitioners consistently lacked any verifiable evidence.

In one study involving a sample of 29 patients from a medical clinic who claimed to have survived satanic ritual abuse, not a single allegation could be substantiated — neither through medical records nor through corroborating testimonies from family members. Another large-scale survey, conducted among 2,709 American therapists, revealed that the overwhelming majority of such allegations originated from only 16 practitioners.

It has also been demonstrated that the investigative techniques employed to gather testimony from young children evolved throughout the period of the satanic panic, becoming increasingly leading, coercive, and suggestive. Investigators often pressured children to provide statements, prompting them to fabricate stories in order to satisfy adult expectations. When these problematic and manipulative interview methods were altered or removed, the allegations of ritual abuse virtually disappeared.

Sociologist Jeffrey S. Victor examined 67 cases of reported satanic ritual abuse rumors across the United States and Canada — incidents that had been covered by newspapers or television — and found no credible evidence of any murderous satanic cults.

To this day, no forensic or corroborating evidence has ever been found to substantiate claims of satanic ritual abuse, whether cannibalistic or homicidal in nature, despite numerous exhaustive investigations. Even when isolated crimes are considered — those in which individuals personally identified as Satan worshippers — the widespread fear and societal reaction to the supposed threat of satanic ritual abuse are now regarded as profoundly disproportionate to the actual evidence.

In 1994, when Kenneth Lanning released his FBI report summarizing the investigations he had conducted, several convictions based on allegations of satanic ritual abuse were overturned, and the accused were set free. Meanwhile, Michelle Remembers—the book that had ignited much of the satanic panic—was largely discredited. Though it presented its claims as factual, not a single piece of verifiable evidence was ever provided to support the authors’ assertions. Investigators described the book’s content as being largely derived from popular fictional narratives of its time, such as The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Omen.

According to a scholarly study by Joseph Laycock, patients who were hypnotized by therapists to “recover” memories of satanic ritual abuse “often appeared to recall scenes directly inspired by those films.” The decline—if not the outright end—of the satanic panic in the United States is generally placed between 1992 and 1995.

The latter year is particularly significant due to the release of the HBO television film Indictment: The McMartin Trial. The film leaves little ambiguity about its message: the McMartin family were victims of moral panic rather than perpetrators of ritual abuse. It denounced the era’s blind willingness to believe without evidence and exposed the dangers of a judicial system that followed hysteria instead of truth. Though a dramatization, it remains to this day a seminal work illustrating how collective fear and flawed investigation can destroy innocent lives. One might say, that should sound familiar by now.

Gradually, the satanic panic began to lose its grip across the globe—only to be replaced by new cultural fears, such as the supposed dangers of video games. And yet, it would re-emerge decades later, reborn in digital form. In 2017, on the imageboard 4chan, a new conspiracy movement was born: QAnon. This theory recycled all the tropes of the satanic panic, adding, metaphorically speaking, “vomit on top of excrement.” Daycare centers were no longer the alleged sites of ritual abuse; now, Hollywood liberals, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking officials were accused of having intimate ties with Satanism and child exploitation.

It is true that cases of child abuse have been uncovered within powerful social circles—just as they have in lower ones. However, the individuals most often highlighted by conspiracy theorists tend to be celebrities, which conveniently serves their narrative. In reality, these cases typically involve people with immense wealth, power, and influence—individuals who exploit their privilege and virtual impunity to act above the law (hello, Trump, P. Diddy, Epstein, Weinstein). That does not make them part of a global satanic cabal. Ironically, the vast majority of these individuals are adherents of the world’s major Abrahamic religions. Whatever they learned, it certainly wasn’t from Satan.

Sociological data show that citizens most inclined to believe in satanic conspiracy theories are rural, conservative families with minimal formal education, often living in deep anxiety over job insecurity. A demographic profile that, strikingly, mirrors that of Donald Trump’s voter base—a rather poetic irony, isn’t it?

Today, however, Satanism has somewhat fallen out of fashion. The new scapegoat is “Wokism.” Evidence of this can be seen in the United States, where laws are being passed to ban drag shows, censor books exploring LGBTQIA+ history and culture, cut private funding for Pride events, and even remove rainbow crosswalks. Add to this the steady regression of women’s rights—restricted or outright banned access to abortion in over half the states, prohibitions on mailing emergency contraceptive pills, and, astonishingly, public figures such as defense ministers openly suggesting the removal of women’s voting rights.

Satanism. Wokism. Both serve as convenient scapegoats—embodiments of a supposed existential threat—when a society is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. Russia, for instance, passed a law on July 23, 2025, banning an entity known as “the International Satanist Movement,” an organization that, quite simply, does not exist. But its nonexistence is precisely what makes it so useful: it allows the state to target anyone it wishes to, whenever it becomes politically expedient to do so.

Conclusion:

Now that I’ve laid out the full context and history of the Satanic Panic in the United States, doesn’t reading all of this remind you of something? That secretly gay teenager who plays Dungeons & Dragons and mysteriously disappears—the very same game that becomes the object of moral outrage and public demonization. Those grieving mothers, driven by pure maternal instinct, each reacting in her own way: some desperately seeking someone to blame, others using their children’s tragedies to wage a moral crusade they believe to be righteous, never realizing that their actions only amplify the very evil that harmed—or even killed—their children.

“The conformity is what kills the kids,” said our beloved Eddie Munson, the central victim and target of Stranger Things’ own version of the Satanic Panic in Season 4. The series doesn’t merely recreate the hysteria—it mirrors the psychological and social mechanisms that sustained it. There’s also the question of responsibility: the psychologists and therapists who, in real life, exploited the vulnerability of their patients and the gullibility of society, manipulating public fear through their psychological expertise to validate their personal beliefs or professional agendas. Some even achieved fame and wealth by doing so, exploiting the notion of “recovered memories.” That very theme echoes through Eleven’s storyline in Season 4—trauma, memory, manipulation, and the blurred line between truth and fabrication.

Everything aligns—even the key years that define the show’s timeline: 1983, 1984, 1986… It’s clear that Stranger Thingsdraws heavily from real historical and cultural events. The show captures the spirit of the 1980s not only through aesthetics or nostalgia, but through the collective anxieties that shaped the decade—whether it be the AIDS panic, which runs as an emotional undercurrent throughout the series, or the Satanic Panic, which serves as both literal depiction and metaphor. These two social panics—AIDS and Satanism—are in fact two sides of the same coin.

Both emerge from a society that believes it is protecting itself, its loved ones, and its moral integrity, yet in doing so, it turns its fear against the innocent—the very victims of the conditions it refuses to confront. In the process, it perpetuates the harm, playing directly into the hands of the true sources of corruption and decay: capitalism, conformity, and authoritarianism, which thrive by weaponizing their most effective tools—fear, ignorance, poverty, and hatred.

And this same cycle continues today, merely under a new name: the so-called war on “Wokeism.” When we analyze the parallels, it becomes evident that the real history which inspired Stranger Things is not so distant from our current reality. And perhaps there is no better way to challenge this ongoing hysteria, this conformity, this culture of fear, than to expose it through one of the most-watched series on Netflix. To bring it full circle—by allowing its central character, the very first and most symbolic victim of both supernatural and social persecution, to finally triumph, to live freely, and to find love with the man he loves.

I hope you still say that when you walk outside and see all the ADULTS voting to ban books, picketing outside libraries and schools, and saying certain books "groom children" so they need to be pulled from shelves because something something moral panic.

Just saying.

Brushing off moral panic as a "stupid jobless child fandom thing" is like... Do you also brush off bigots in fandom who radicalize kids into becoming terfs because it's happening in fandom. Do you get that fandom isn't a fucking vacuum. Do you get that just because fandom has words for being against moral panic, and supporting moral panic, that doesn't mean it's a fandom only thing.