Anyone Remember The Satanic Cult Conspiracies In The 80's?

[mlady]

Anyone else remember this made for TV gem staring a very young Tom Hanks?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/

Mazes and Monsters! The danger of role playing games!

My son and his friends play D&D, Magic, whatever...all the time. Tonight is RISK night though :)

[blisterine]

I remember one of the most cheez-tastic of the cheezy CHiPs series episodes involved Satanism in rock music. It even involved them playing a song backwards at 666 speed/frequency/something like that?? and getting a hidden message. Satan, Satan everywhere! Good times.

My parents used to love Jimmy Swaggart and he once had a sermon about rock music where he claimed that the beats of drums in rock music came straight from the rhythms of tribal Africa which, of course, made them straight from the devil. About then I was already drifting away from the faith so thought it was fucking dickish thing to say. Especially when Swaggart's own music has the same sound of his cousin Jerry Lee's music whose sound was the original rock n roll.

I remember that episode, but how Satanic could it really have been? The rocker in Satanic make-up was Danny Bonaduce (post PF)!

The Baptist church I went to even encouraged kids to bring in their Carpenter's albums for burning because both of them claimed they were not virgins. I can only hope it wasn't with each other.

[dirtyhippiegirl]

Take Satanic cult worries, throw in a large dash of unfounded repressed memory/recovered memory work plus the general notion that small children do not lie or cannot be coached = hysteria of the 80s and early 90s. Elizabeth Loftus continues to do a lot of good research both into the idea of memory repression and the dubious therapies used to bring back repressed memories.

[DefraudedbyGothard]

This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial was all consuming when I was a teen. It was the OJ trial of that era. Also there is this Hells Bells

the bestest video on rock music. :nenner:

[GenerationCedarchip]

Good news! I just found the book I was looking for online : http://awfullibrarybooks.net/satan-for-kids/ It is called, "Mommy, Don't Make Me Go Back." I can't imagine anyone ever reading this to a child.

Oh my gosh! What a horrible book. My old fundie church had that in the library. I was blissfully unaware of it for years but one of my college friends found it while digging out children's books for an education school project and it was the subject of much un-fundie-approved snarking in our young women's group.

I always had conflicted feelings about those satanic cult stories. On the one hand, so many were hoaxes, but then again, there actually was a group of folks I knew of caught operating out of an abandoned farmhouse and they really were sacrificing animals, doing lots of drugs and all kinds of creepy stuff. No little kids involved, though,and they weren't trying to kidnap anyone into their little group.

[runrgrl65]

I worked in a psychiatric inpatient facility in the late 80's. One of the Docs specialized in multiple personality disorder. Interestingly, whenever there was a particularly difficult patient (didn't fit a diagnosis, didn't respond to treatment,etc) they would be evaluated by this Dr. More often than not, the women were diagnosed with dissociative disorder or MPD and usually ended up having repressed memories of satanic abuse, and the men were generally given a diagnosis of berderline personality disorder. After several years, I pointed this out to my supervisor, along with statistics that our facility had an unusually high incidence of MPD and was told I shouldn't talk about it or bring it up again, that we were fortunate to have a specialist on staff that knew how to handle these cases. She also pointed out on several occasions how unsafe the world is and that the satanists were lurking around every corner, so we should all be vigilant.

[Jinger Jar]

My husband was a huge D&D nerd in high school. Actually, he still is... :whistle:

Anyhow, he and his buddies used to play D&D in the school library during lunch until someone decided they were conjuring evil spirits, practicing necromancy, or doing whatever else nefarious, and they got kicked out. So they, 4.0 students, Eagle Scouts, science fair geeks, and mathletes, ended up D&Ding behind the baseball bleachers, sharing space with the school's pot smokers and ruffians. I'm sure it was hard to tell which group was more put out by the arrangement. :lol:

[RandomTrivia]

What a horrific book! :o

I love the awful library books website. Always something either hilarious, ridiculously outdated, or totally bizarre to see there. :pink-shock:

Well, I know what I'll be reading later. Maybe I'll find this book I saw last fall there. It was donated to a charity I help with, wish I'd kept it. It was the birds & the bees explanation, done very simply and straightforward, with chickens, dogs (Cocker spaniels, as I recall), and I think humans as the examples, but a little on the "graphic" side for some people - it actually had an illustration of two dogs mating. I liked it because of the illustrations, which were all done with paper cutouts that were amazing in the amount of detail they had, plus, of course it was a little kitschy. Had to be from the 70s or 80s.

[clone]

I remember wanting to play D&D because it sounded right up my alley, but I didn't know anyone who did. There were commercials from cheesy board game version of it, but my mom bought it for me, and I was so disappointed. Never played the real thing until college.

I was seriously freaked out by ouija boards, though, even when I was past any sort of belief in demons. Possession is truly one of the creepiest concepts ever. I watched the Evil Dead movies through my fingers. Lol, even funny demons are freaking scary shit. (I want to see the remake!)

[Handmaiden of Dog]

Ha! I had a Ouija board-- I got it as a Christmas present when I was in elementary school. I clearly remember playing with it with my 5th grade friend and being a bit creeped out because we were "contacted" by a dead witch. To this day I don't know how it happened, but I do remember looking the witch up in our encyclopedia and she was a real person. Over all though, I was raised by very open minded parents in the 60's in So. California, so religion was never that important to me.

My husband, on the other hand, was raised Baptist in the South. Although he is an atheist, he is still creeped out by ghost stories and the idea of demonic possession. When he was young he was sure there was a 666 tattooed on the back of his head because he had so many bad thoughts.

[NerdyHil]

As I grew up in southern California, the McMartin daycare case was all over the local news and in the papers so I remember that case specifically. Speaking of the Satanic hysteria about Dungeons and Dragons, I found this classic Chick Tract. My gamer geek friends and I still snark over this one.

chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

My little gang of D&D nerds still quote this to each other if someone dies in a game. There is a lot of "Black leaf, no!" being yelled. My husband is from a tiny town of less than 500 people and his childhood of the '70's and '80's were filled with the fact that any sort of rock music was of the Devil. Husband has always been into things like fantasy books and art, so he was intrigued by D&D but he couldn't find out much about it since it was such a taboo. Recently, my favorite little used book store here in our town has some older D&D books(Advanced Dungeon and Dragons, I think) that my husband snatched up. The lady that owns the store was very concerned that the manual had "witchcraft" in it. We assured her it didn't, since we knew she would freak out and not sell it to us if she thought it did. I knew she was super religious, but not full on fundie lite at the least.

[clone]

My husband, on the other hand, was raised Baptist in the South. Although he is an atheist, he is still creeped out by ghost stories and the idea of demonic possession. When he was young he was sure there was a 666 tattooed on the back of his head because he had so many bad thoughts.

OMG, is his name Damien??? XD

[Handmaiden of Dog]

No his name is not Damien but apparently The Omen scared the beejesus out of him because he thought it portrayed his future. Or something.

[clone]

No his name is not Damien but apparently The Omen scared the beejesus out of him because he thought it portrayed his future. Or something.

Ouch, sorry to make light of it. How terrible to actually have been so affected by that crap to live in fear of something so...hopeless and catastrophic. I can't even imagine what he must have felt like thinking that about himself. The fear mongering of religious groups is definitely one of their most heinous crimes.

[lamariposa]

I remember in Spanish churches when this made the rounds in the 80s. Some of the preachings were based on a book called "Turmoil in the Toybox". We had to throw away so many toys because they were satanic (care bears, cabbage patch, my little pony, rainbow brite, she-ra, he-man - I had a friend who had the entire Greyskull castle collection). All I remember is crying because I was going to lose so many toys and most were already hand-me-downs from my mom's job as a housekeeper. Some kids were even made to bring theirs to church and put them in the altar as a show of surrendering to the word of God. What bullshit. Then in the 90s the whole satanic ritual thing came back with all the Rebecca Brown books on spiritual warfare. People testifying that Satan had appeared to them and one person claimed to have glow-in-the-dark scratches from where a demon attacked him while he prayed in the middle of the night :/

See, these are the kind of things that I could never talk to someone who wasn't raised fundie because they just cannot understand how grown ass people believe demons hide in toys.

[IrishRose]

We had honest to goodness Satan worshippers living next door to us when I was growing up. They actually got our next door neighbors wife into it. They were completely upfront about it and used to have rituals at night although it never involved sacrificing animals or babies as far as I know.

And my husband and I are Christians and avid D&D fans. I had believed all the nonsense about D&D until I met my husband and found out what it really was.

[DaffyDill]

Over here in Aus, I think we missed most of the Satanic scaremongering, although I do recall the fuss over heavymetal records supposedly containing messages etc. All that seemed to do was push album sales up.

I read the info on the McMartin trial - and just....wow...What a travesty :o

[Rescinded and Mended]

Random Trivia, you beat me to it. I was also going to mention Jay's Journal. I read it in the early 90s, and at that time, it was presented as real. I read the Wiki entry just now and it makes me sick that the woman who really wrote the book could have been exploiting the tragic suicide of a real teenager.

As for rock music, my mom went through a phase where she thought the souls of me and my older brother would be lost if we listened to it. Whenever my parents went out, my brother would babysit me. Naturally, he would watch the evil rock music on MTV, and I never ratted him out because he let me stay up late with him and eat all the junk food I wanted. :)

There was always a sort of cognitive dissonance with my mother when it came to bad influences. Rock music would make me lose my soul, but extremely violent horror movies were okay when I was a small child (some of those movies really scared me, I was 4 or 5 and she'd watch movies like Poltergeist with me in the room). When I got older (teen years), she was terrified I would turn away from God and to a life of crime if I played violent video games. :roll:

[Rescinded and Mended]

Well sure, I can definitely see why fundies would hate She-Ra. That series was about strong, powerful women who handled their own problems and forged ahead when things got tough. And it was usually the men in the series getting kidnapped and needing rescuing. No respectable fundie would agree with that! :D

And CelticGoddess, did your Da know Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman when he was at TSR? I absolutely love their work, including the Dragonlance books! Squee!

*is overwhelmed with nerdly glee*

[DarkAnts]

As I grew up in southern California, the McMartin daycare case was all over the local news and in the papers so I remember that case specifically. Speaking of the Satanic hysteria about Dungeons and Dragons, I found this classic Chick Tract. My gamer geek friends and I still snark over this one.

chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

My favorite line is "trapped in a dungeon of bondage". They say it like its a bad thing

[Handmaiden of Dog]

Ouch, sorry to make light of it. How terrible to actually have been so affected by that crap to live in fear of something so...hopeless and catastrophic. I can't even imagine what he must have felt like thinking that about himself. The fear mongering of religious groups is definitely one of their most heinous crimes.

He also has memories about being terrified by a movie shown at his church-- something about the Rapture and since he was so obviously evil (he lusted after Farrah Faucett's breasts) he was sure he would be Left Behind while his family floated up to heaven.

But life is funny. Some people might respond to this sort of indoctrination by becoming devout, but my husband responded by saying "Fuck the church." He joined a punk band, got piercings, and had premarital sex! I'm sure glad he did because I could never be with a religious man.

[SoybeanQueen]

Last fall, I got into a heated discussion with a friend of a friend about this stuff. He claimed that he wouldn't let his kids do anything other than church activities on Halloween because of the evil people and Satan worshippers. Even after I peppered the conversation with articles about the lack of evidence of such horrors on Halloween, he clung to the idea that peril was waiting around every block. But somehow it's OK to go to a "Harvest Festival" at the church and walk around to candy stations while wearing a costume. That's completely different from Halloween!

He also said that his mother was a counselor who had *many* patients who had experienced Satanic ritual abuse, and if I only knew about the terrible things these people had been through, I'd change my mind about Halloween. Mmmhmm. Sure. Sorry your mom is also a whackjob, sir.

[clone]

Heh, saw this on Facebook today.

http://io9.com/satan-is-a-harsh-dungeon ... -730011153

[jenny_islander]

We lost a kid from our D&D group because his parents heard some preacher or other on the evils of D&D. He had bought hundreds of dollars worth of rulebooks, minis, etc., with money from his afterschool job and they burned it all in the back yard with their clergyperson praying over the smoke. Then his dad told him that he would be sent away to a Very Strict School if he so much as spoke to a D&D player ever again. He sneaked into my aisle at the public library to explain why he'd dropped off the radar and avoided us at school, and also told me bitterly that he was leaving the week he graduated and never coming back. AFAIK he never did. A+ parenting there, yep.

The woman who accused D&D of causing her son to commit suicide was named Pat Pulling. Here is an expose of her "research" methods: http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html

Also, I'm another Christian D&D player, and another woman who met her husband at D&D sessions.

[AnAgnostic]

I remember the Satanic Cult crap of the 80s and 90s. I still shake my head at the stupidity/gullibility of some people. Just recently I was watching Dr. Phil and the subject was mentally ill mothers. I swear it was like I was watching one of those "news" programs on Satanism in the 80's One of the mothers appeared with her "therapist" and the therapist actually claimed that she was ritualistically abused by a Satanic / Neo Nazi Cult. The thing was the mother herself didn't remember her family having anything to do with Nazism. The therapist then "reminded" her of some man some man (presumably the Nazi) who abused her along with her father. The therapist reminded me of these so-called therapists that planted stories in children's heads. She also gave off a skeevy fraudulent vibe. I don't know which is worse, the false allegation, the fraudulent therapists or the gullible public