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

[PennySycamore]

The father of my daughters' Best Friends Forever cut off the horns of their unicorns. I think he might have gotten rid of all their My Little Ponys as well.

[Cran]

I'm a bit late to play, but still want to chime in.

Born in 1981 to a family that was fairly liberal and didn't practise religion, I only got to know about the Satanism-conspiracies second hand through friends and books, not BRAVO, though, I was never much into teen culture. I was fascinated by it!

I remember reading books that were branded as authentic and real biographies like "Lukas - Vier Jahre Hoelle und zurueck" ("Lukas - For years in hell and back") which have been examined after the craze waned and have found to be very improbable and especially this book is held to be fabricated today.

A few years back, I revisited this topic and found at least two documentaries which impressed me at first very much, but when I looked into it, again, it seems they were made by a producer who is not reliable and tried to keep the Satanism-fear going. He accompanied alleged survivors of satanic cults to places where the abuses supposedly had taken place, but nothing is ever uncovered and people who work in some of those places, like old castles, state they do not think the rooms could have been used as described by the witnesses, who are, in my opinion, exploited. Most of them suffer from multiple personality disorder and manifest so many inner personae that it is simply unbelievable (12 and more!). I'm not accusing them of being a fraud, but I think these are classic cases of false memory syndrome, being introduced and helped by wrong therapy and sensationalist guys like the producer of the documentation. He even filmed the supposed spontaneous revelation of a new inner person an a playground.

I'll have to take a look around youtube and see if I can find those "documentaries" again, nonsense or not, they were quite fun to watch. (ETA: Suppose I did, they are called "Hoellenleben" and there are several parts.)

Today, there a re several info-pages around denouncing the Satanism-craze in Germany, often maintained by the same organizations that bought into it in the 80s and 90s (churches, police - they also had special unit for Satanism), stating nothing could ever be made of the allegations of a Satanism-network, but I suppose if I went into German evangelical Churches of the crazy kind, they would preach me books as the Lukas-one from above as gospel truth.

ETA: the false memory syndrome is really scary to me. There was a very drawn out trial in my home town in which several persons were accused of abusing children in their care. And years and years later, it all turned out be false! The lives of those involved were ruined, the accuseds' as well as that of the children and their families.

(It's German wikipedia, sorry, couldn't find a good English source because googling for "Worms" in English www gives never the results I want: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormser_Prozesse )

[JesusFightClub]

Cran, thanks for the link! I'm reading it slowly because of my shitty schoolgirl-German, but it looks interesting. And you're from a place with a really cool name :)

I also really appreciated the Diane Vera link which I found around here somewhere because Ms Vera has actually put forward a sensible argument for how people should view Islamically-motivated political violence. She just has a lot of common sense, which in my experience of Satanists, isn't usually a quality they possess in great amounts. I have got a new respect after reading her stuff.

[Sumeri]

Oh yes, I remember. In Chicago we had an old cemetery where supposedly the Satanists were having rituals involving chickens nightly. No chickens around and they would come for your dogs and your daughters.

Even back then, as a teen, I thought it was a bunch of bullshit because where in god's name were Satanists finding all these chickens in Chicago? :lol: In my early 20's one of my best friends was dating a Chicago cop who worked in that area and even he. who was a big conspiracy theorist, told me that if any bones were scattered around graves in that particular cemetery it was probably leftovers from some picnicking family.

[AtroposHeart]

During the 80's I was busy being a sperm, so no Satanic Panic for me.

However, Moral Panics have always had a fascination for me, so I have quite read up on the Satanic Panic and the effect it had on Geek Culture with D&D.

[Swamptribe]

Oddly enough, was just thinking about the whole 'satanic panic' thing the other day. I had a relative who got into the whole end times thing after the novel The Stand came out. Luckily we had parents who saw this stuff for the bullshit it was.

I also played D&D in High School, and have been happily married to a fellow player for almost three decades now.

Let us also not forget the whole 'kidnapped by UFO's and sexually abused by aliens' mania. Which peaked about the same time as the satanic cult manias.

[atheistjd]

I love this thread and all the links... for years, I honestly always thought my parents/our church was wacky. I remember them scaring me away from Halloween, telling me Satanists conducted rituals behind our local community college, and something about Care Bears. They also let me read some very not-age-appropriate books (whose names I would love to find out - there was a red volume and a black volume) that contained lots of supposedly autobiographical or true-life stories about satanic rituals and such. It's no wonder I still can't watch horror movies - this was all when I was like 7 and I really bought into/was scared by it all.

My favorite was my mother's best friend at the time had this crazy abusive, alcoholic, frequently unemployed laze-about husband. My parents finally encouraged her to stage an intervention and/or leave him. What pushed them over the edge? He played D&D :roll:

edited to correctly place my eye-roll emoticon...

[ThatSnark]

I grew up across the street from a fundie mom who gave me a book called "Why Knock Rock?" for my 13th birthday. The human eye can not roll ENOUGH to disdain this poorly-written, spurious, godawful witch-hunt of a book. How I wish FJ and Amazon had been around back then, because I didn't have anyone to snark about this glorious foaming-at-the-pages piece of nonsense! The Amazon reviews are delightful: http://www.amazon.com/Knock-Rock-good-r ... 0871234408

[notsocommon]

Found "don't make me go bak" on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Back-Mo ... ewpoints=1

[SoybeanQueen]

Ages ago, when we were very young, my husband and I moved to a city several hours from home. One of his new coworkers tried to take him under his wing, which luckily my husband was skeptical enough to see through. The church invitations were to something called "Victory World Prayer Center," which screams fundie/possibly crazy to me. (It's not the one that comes up in Google, btw. As far as I know, the church we were invited to is no longer active.)

This man also gave my husband a book about how rock music is of the devil. My husband did read it, and read several parts of it out loud to me so we could laugh together. The book was very Satanic panic type stuff. Little did we know we were being wooed by the devil's beat each time we listened to the radio!

Once, the coworker invited my husband to play basketball with a group of his friends. Since we didn't know anyone else there yet, husband decided to go. After basketball, the men gathered for Bible study, and my husband was too polite/curious to leave. The group was standing, singing praise songs, when the man next to my husband dropped to the ground and appeared to be convulsing. Just as my husband began to kneel down to check on the guy and alert others, he noticed a few other men do the same thing. Pretty soon the whole crowd, minus my husband, was on the ground, speaking gibberish, and rolling around. My husband wasn't quite sure what to do, so he just kind of kneeled there awkwardly until it was over.

Meanwhile, I was at home, very pregnant with our first child, and incredibly hormonally emotional at that point. Knowing that he was out with his coworker with the questionable Devil beliefs, I began to worry when he was gone much longer than a basketball game would normally take. By the time he got home a couple hours later, I was sobbing hysterically, imagining that my husband was being held hostage by some crazed cult who wouldn't let him leave until he admitted that we were worshipping the devil by not denouncing Bon Jovi. I had Satanic Panic, just not the right kind, I guess.

[AtroposHeart]

Ages ago, when we were very young, my husband and I moved to a city several hours from home. One of his new coworkers tried to take him under his wing, which luckily my husband was skeptical enough to see through. The church invitations were to something called "Victory World Prayer Center," which screams fundie/possibly crazy to me. (It's not the one that comes up in Google, btw. As far as I know, the church we were invited to is no longer active.)

This man also gave my husband a book about how rock music is of the devil. My husband did read it, and read several parts of it out loud to me so we could laugh together. The book was very Satanic panic type stuff. Little did we know we were being wooed by the devil's beat each time we listened to the radio!

Once, the coworker invited my husband to play basketball with a group of his friends. Since we didn't know anyone else there yet, husband decided to go. After basketball, the men gathered for Bible study, and my husband was too polite/curious to leave. The group was standing, singing praise songs, when the man next to my husband dropped to the ground and appeared to be convulsing. Just as my husband began to kneel down to check on the guy and alert others, he noticed a few other men do the same thing. Pretty soon the whole crowd, minus my husband, was on the ground, speaking gibberish, and rolling around. My husband wasn't quite sure what to do, so he just kind of kneeled there awkwardly until it was over.

Meanwhile, I was at home, very pregnant with our first child, and incredibly hormonally emotional at that point. Knowing that he was out with his coworker with the questionable Devil beliefs, I began to worry when he was gone much longer than a basketball game would normally take. By the time he got home a couple hours later, I was sobbing hysterically, imagining that my husband was being held hostage by some crazed cult who wouldn't let him leave until he admitted that we were worshipping the devil by not denouncing Bon Jovi. I had Satanic Panic, just not the right kind, I guess.

Aww.....that was oddly cute how worried you were (not to dismiss your concern), but it is an amusing story.

[SoybeanQueen]

I can laugh about it now! lol

[mg78]

I remember in my ultra catholic HS, we were shown about Rock music and its connection with Satanism.

I am sure many of you have seen, it mention many hard rock bands, in particular KISS: Kids in Satan Services, which is ludicrous to think them as evil while wearing their make-up.

Another point was how many homosexuals were involved in rock music with Elton John as an example.

Even them, we found the documentary more stupid than anything.

[MsSaylor]

Was it Hells Bells?

[MsSaylor]

My husband used to be involved in some kind of fundie lite church and someone he knew thought that the original lead singer of AC/DC was possessing the body if the guy that replaced him, because they sounded so similar. Wut?

[Arete]

My dad told us that God had to settle for all the pious souls in heaven after Satan laid claim to all the good music. :lol:

[LadyBlue]

I've been (slowly) reading a book about the West Memphis Three. It's pretty horrifying how things were manipulated, facts were ignored etc. It's actually making me angry.

There are STILL people who believe the McMartin stories are real and there was a huge conspiracy of "Satanists" who covered it up. If anyone is interested in a bit of a long read, this site has a good, detailed explanation of what happened. http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/vo ... _2_1_1.htm

[Sobeknofret]

My husband used to be involved in some kind of fundie lite church and someone he knew thought that the original lead singer of AC/DC was possessing the body if the guy that replaced him, because they sounded so similar. Wut?

Psht. Brian Johnson doesn't sound much like Bon Scott if you listen closely enough... :twisted:

I met my husband playing an RPG, and we still do play on occasion. If Satan's trying to get to us through the game, I must say he's doing a really lousy job of it.

[EyeQueue]

My husband used to be involved in some kind of fundie lite church and someone he knew thought that the original lead singer of AC/DC was possessing the body if the guy that replaced him, because they sounded so similar. Wut?

After Christ, Devil Comes? For shame! :naughty:

[jenny_islander]

My husband used to be involved in some kind of fundie lite church and someone he knew thought that the original lead singer of AC/DC was possessing the body if the guy that replaced him, because they sounded so similar. Wut?

Isn't it classic? Go straight past "The band found somebody who could sing like the other guy because they wanted to keep their sound" and "Wow, my radio is really lousy, I can't actually tell these two guys apart" to "SATANNNNNNNN." It's like they want to be surrounded by swarming invisible demons.

[MsSaylor]

Ha exactly! It's funny how my husband stayed in this church for several years despite the fact is bullshit meter was raging at full tilt from the beginning. This was before I met him.

[MsSaylor]

He also wants me to share about the guy at his work whose mom believes that real witches and wizards came to J.K Rowling and told her the true story of Harry Potter.

[Patsy]

He also wants me to share about the guy at his work whose mom believes that real witches and wizards came to J.K Rowling and told her the true story of Harry Potter.

She then read the story out to her transcriber from a magical wizard's hat. Inside the hat was the philosopher's stone.