Satanic Cults Conspiracy

This conspiracy blew out of the late 80's and early 1990's craze about a rash of child abuse cases that involved supposed Satanic cults. Geraldo Rivera's NBC special entitled 'Devil Worship Exposing Satan's Underground,' was mostly responsible for fanning the flames of this conspiracy. So-called expert witnesses testified that Satanic cults were killing babies and doing it with ghastly rituals. Rivera claimed that there are over a million Satanists in America. Unfortunately, he presented no evidence for this claim.

The official title for this idea is 'Satanic Ritual Abuse' (SRA) and it became a buzz phrase by religious fundamentalists, child advocates and proponents of psychotherapy in the late 1980's. Basically, SRA became a rallying cry to spread panic among families with children, especially when they heard testimony by children and adults to the debauchery that was occurring in these nefarious cults. Of course, this subject became a favorite of talk shows, which had the effect of spreading the panic even further, especially with the predominance of the so-called Moral Majority.

SRA has been the theme of horror novels that feature cannibalism, child torture, ritual sacrifice, killing of babies and desecration of the Eucharist. Often, these rituals were preceded by incestuous orgies. Satanic cults have existed in the past, so the idea is nothing new.

What's new is the use of suspicious methods to obtain testimony from children who were allegedly abused by Satanists. A lot of this can be traced back to a book by Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist husband titled 'Michelle Remembers', which made the first claim that child abuse was linked to Satanic rituals. A infamous McMartin preschool case evolved in California involving Kee MacFarlane, a social worker for the 'Children's Instituted International', who had devised a way to interrogate children to reveal suppressed sexual abuse. Her method caused all sorts of problems by bringing accusations against innocent people.

This sounds to me like what happen in the infamous Witch Trials in Salem Massachusetts in 1778. Coercive methods were used to extract false confessions from people accused of being witches and their victims. This craziness resulted in 20 people being executed.

The FBI director at the time, Kenneth Lanning, concluded that the rumors about ritual murders and cannibalism were unfounded. The entire idea was considered a hoax.

Thanks for reading.