Satanic Panic

Dynamo Art Ass., Vancouver BC

Video Fag, Toronto, ON

Intense feelings erupted all over North America in the early 1980s that continued well into the late 1990s over an issue that was said to threaten the very social order of modern society. It was believed that over centuries, Satanists had organized complex societies all over the world and had been performing Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) on unsuspecting victims regularly.

The initial investigations into SRA were conducted by anthropologists and sociologists, who failed to find evidence of SRA actually occurring; instead they concluded that SRA was a result of rumors and folk legends that were spread by “media hype, Christian fundamentalism, mental health and law enforcement professionals and child abuse advocates” (The Dilemma of Ritual Abuse: Cautions and Guides for Therapists. Fraser, GA - 1997).

Nonetheless Satanic Ritual Abuse became a moral panic that seemed to distort normal childhood fears and fantasies into a so-called crime epidemic that was never able to produce evidence of criminal activity.

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