It’s true. I made it out of the Satanic Panic mostly unscathed.
What is the Satanic Panic you ask? You see, there were times in the ancient history of the United States where leaders and even law enforcement were convinced of some kind of sinister underground Satanic plot to cause destruction and mayhem.
School teachers and principals would warn students of loner Satanists driving around in certain vehicles looking for children to kidnap and perform rituals on. Police departments investigated weird signs and symbols that appeared all over town. Satanists apparently went so far as to record curses on cassette tapes that they would break onto busy intersections to spread these curses to all that drove by as the magnetic tape unrolled.
Or so we were told.
I still remember a friend walking into a restaurant we both worked at with an armful of unwound magnetic tape he collected from an intersection. He expressed his disgust over “those Satanists” trying to curse people and chunked the tape in the trash.
This was the late 1990s, by the way. The Satanic Panic spread itself out over several decades.
In high school in the late 80s, I was even added to our school’s “Most Likely to be a Satan Worshipper” list. The reason? I wore a black t-shirt with a peace sign on it. It was actually a band shirt for Enuff Z’Nuff – but they probably had no idea who that was.
Why is the peace symbol satanic? Because to many people, it is an occult symbol – an upside down broken cross. Just calling it “occult” adds an entire layer of mystery that no one would question.
In case you are thinking “wow, you grew up in a weird place!” – this was actually a national event. Geraldo Rivera made a documentary on Devil Worship. Tom Hanks starred in a cheesy movie before he was famous on the dangers of Dungeons & Dragons. Nationwide best sellers like Michelle Remembers told shocking tales of children who were victims of horrific Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). Overzealous and under-trained law enforcement officials raided childcare centers looking for hidden Satanic cells, sending innocent people to jail (some that are still there).
It was all exposed to be a lie.
You can read about the history of the Satanic Panic as well as how Larry Pazder, author of Michelle Remembers, was exposed and debunked. The problem is, many people still believe that occult symbols are dangerous, and that SRA is still a thing.
Why is this so? The answer is complex. Some people still do not believe the work that was done to debunk the claims. Others just really want to help people – which is not a bad thing. Others are fooled by con artists trying to take advantage of that good will. Some just have an unhealthy obsessions with the weird and supernatural – an interest which can be interesting for many, but that can go too far.
However, I have been through many experiences that have convinced me that SRA is not a real event. As a Christian, I believe that the Devil is real and that he is out to deceive many. But as the Bible says – he is an Angel of Light that looks good but deceives by trickery rather than gore and violence.
First of all, I want to address a common claim about SRA. The belief that there is a national conspiracy by law enforcement officials to ignore and cover up SRA is completely unsubstantiated. The police will investigate any report of abuse of any kind, no matter how much they believe the context of the abuse. This is key concept to recognize – the abuse is often real, but the human mind sometimes creates weird scenarios to deal with the pain it causes (like SRA).
But wait, you say. Certainly Satanism and the Occult are at least partially as wide-spread as some churches would like us to believe, right?
Not really. True Satanism is a mostly unpopular idea that revolves around the worship of self. Satanism was one of many religious beliefs I investigated as a teenager. The Church of Satan turned out to be a group of people that just wanted to agitate organized religion. No that this is a bad thing – organized religion has many, many faults. But most Satanists are normal people – and really not into occult symbols or ghastly satanic rituals.
People that actually worship Satan and want to perform bloody rituals to bring about power and glory to themselves? I never could find anyone that was like that.
Truth be told, they are pretty hard to find, outside of the rare person that gets too obsessed with horror films. They are out there – just incredible rare and incredible secretive.
And that is the crux of the problem – most of our popular conceptions of “Satan Worship” are formed by Hollywood – which in turn was just thinking about what would sell best rather that realistic accuracy.
So when a church’s view of SRA or the Occult matches closely with a Hollywood horror worldview, you know they are being more influenced by Hollywood than the Bible.
But aren’t Occultic symbols all around us, just waiting to curse the poor fool that unwittingly buys a Christian music album with such symbols hidden on the front cover? Just take a look at this list of Occult symbols. It is pretty short, and contains some very common symbols that are used for all kinds of things religious and non-religious. Why are churches passing around books with hundreds of possible Occult symbols in them? Because they are confusing “Occult” with various new age and eastern religions and throwing the symbols from all of them into one list.
I discussed this issue with someone that actually claimed to be a follower of the Occult once. Are we really in danger of being cursed by symbols we see everywhere because of their Occult connections? From what I was told, Occultists are actually a secretive group that won’t put symbols out for most to see. I asked how these symbols would affect those that used them unwittingly. He asked me what would happen to the person that worse a cross around their neck even if they didn’t believe in Jesus. Would that still get them to heaven? Well, of course not.
You see, it is not the symbol that brings the power, but the belief in the symbol in almost all religious belief systems – including the Occult (and I probably should mention that the “Occult” is different than Satanism in many ways). The Bible is no different. Other than a few mentions in the Old Testament, the overwhelming message is that your belief is what counts, not the symbols that you might see or inadvertently purchase on a CD cover.
But why are there still churches that believe in SRA? Well, the truth of the matter is that – just like Mike Warnke – there are still many con artists operating in the church that are selling the SRA myth. I have met some of them.
Back in the early 90s, there was a rumor in Waco, TX that some people had been “saved” from SRA due to the work of a particular church (these are usually almost always charismatic churches). Then the story suddenly changed to say that the leader of this group of SRA survivors was actually a con artist that had convinced a small group of impressionable teenagers that they were SRA survivors as well. I got to go to a small meeting where this man told his story.
He was constantly getting caught in lies even there, so this is what he probably did as best as I could tell after sifting through all of that. Apparently, his con involved keeping three different “personas” going at any one time:
- A disheveled homeless SRA victim that is still not “all there” mentally.
- A some-what cleaned up person that has started dealing with his SRA past and maybe even starting to work a part time job.
- A “fully healed” SRA survivor that is preparing to go start a ministry in “another city” to save others from SRA.
Each one of these personas had a range of activities they would go through to keep the act going. Once the third one had run its course in one church, he would “move away” to another state (but really just a neighboring suburb) to start a ministry. The reality was that he would just start over with another #1 persona at another church and keep the cycle going. Depending on how well the game is going, he could spend a few months or several years in each persona stage at any one church.
While in the #1 persona, he would find a small group of impressionable teens and manipulate them into thinking they were SRA survivors as well. As he would move through the three personas, he would “lead” this group through “healing” as well. Of course, since they are not really victims of SRA, they would begin to struggle with being “healed” of something that didn’t happen. That is why he needed to go through the #3 persona and move away: he had to get out before the whole thing fell apart. Once “God” had “called” him elsewhere, it became the church that took the blame for the others’ failure.
The thing is, this con works better in larger urban areas with dozens of suburbs to move through. Since he was successful in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, he thought he would try the con in Waco. But Waco is the kind of place where everyone is two degrees of separation from everyone else. Pretty soon, churches he had no idea were connected to each other in different suburbs of Waco were comparing notes, and discovering holes in his story. Then he tried to get a job for his #2 persona with someone that had actually known him as his #1 persona, and his disguise was not enough to fool anyone.
He presented this all as a weepy confession and repentance session. Then promptly disappeared the next day. Last I heard, he is still around the Dallas/Fort Worth area with the same game being played on various churches.
Oh, and why don’t we warn those churches? Well, some tried. Churches just aren’t that great at admitting mistakes. You usually get a “how dare you question these poor victims? Why are you just trying to ignore the reality of SRA like so many others?”
And there is the very real issue that most of the people that gather around the central con artists really are actually victims of some kind of abuse. They really do need help. It is a complex problem, one that is made worse by the manipulations of the con artist. You can’t just go in guns blazing and demanding every “SRA survivor” confess to being a con artist, because most of them aren’t aware of how they were conned. Sometimes the con artist slips out of the group undetected, leaving his or her victims to think they are SRA survivors for the rest of their lives. And many of those left behind actually do get counseling that actually helps.
But just like Warnke and Pazder were exposed after leading thousands astray, we still need to root out and find those that are conning people… while not condemning the well intentioned individuals that believe the con and just genuinely want to help. This is a hard balance to strike.
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