Satanic Panic of the late 80's

[Bohandas]

Also, don't forget that the satanic panic wasn't just limited to certain games and rock bands being condemned. There were also several literal witch trials, including the Oak Hill satanic ritual abuse trial and the McMartin preschool trial, many of which resulted in convictions and prison time for the accused.

 

[MNblockhead]

What is even more difficult for younger gamers to grok is that the Satanic Panic was just one aspect of society pressures that could make a D&D fan's life difficult. While I was certainly effected by the Satanic Panic, I was more affected by negative stereotypes of geek culture. The geeks won and that makes be happy, but in junior high and high school it would be hard to believe this would become the case. Hell, even being interested in computers was enough to get you picked on.

This is also why Gary Gygax meant so much to many of us from that era. Not just that he was a gaming pioneer who was the primary driving force behind D&D and the early TTRPG hobby. But he was also understanding uncle who understood us and stuck up for us. The strongest voice defending the hobby. I taped his interview on 60-minutes and rewatched it many times. Not only to help me in my arguments to convince parents, teachers, and library personnel, but also it was just comforting.

The Satanic Panic was not just about D&D. Many peoples lives were ruined by unfounded accusations that seem hard to believe, sitting here in 2020, that anyone took it seriously.

But overall my friends and I were lucky. The Twin Cities more liberal and well outside the bible belt. The gaming community was large. D&D was not banned in my school and my friends and I ran games in our local library.

My best friend was not allowed to play D&D by his conservative catholic parents, even though their priest said there was nothing inherently bad about the game. But that just meant that we played Star Frontiers, Gamma World, and other games. What I find particularly funny is that I ended my D&D fantasy campaign and instead ran a Warhammer Fantasy RPG. That my friend's parents would let him play WFRPG and not D&D just goes to show how little effort they made into understanding the games. They just heard about the dangers of D&D.

But for those who lived in that time, even if not directly impacted, it continues to effect us in our reluctance to discuss the hobby in general company. I'm still getting used to the fact that D&D, anime, computer games, etc. are so main stream.

 

[Dragonsbane]

My teacher crapped their pants when I had the DND Expert set blue book with my school stuff. What a time.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Yeah, it didn't start with D&D and it's never really gone away, it just changes its target every couple of years.

Anton Lavey begat modern Satanism whose rise tangentially begat The Exorcist. Throughout the same period several cults and death cults and suicide cults flourished and ended tragically. The term Serial Killer became a household word and every day fear. That undercurrent of "this is real life" fear, instilled by both Hollywood and actual real life events, travelled to Ouija boards and Tarot cards and anything too New Age and trippy that dabbled in the occult.

Evangelists picked up the thread and started spinning tales of escaping Satanic Sex Cults and reforming themselves. Completely unconfirmable, but enthusiastically reformed high priests and arch dukes and head muckety mucks appeared almost overnight to explain how God saved them and told them to spread the word and collect donations.

The Satanic Panic started to settle its sights on daycare and assisted living facilities. Anything different or scary or that shared even a brief glance towards the occult took a turn at the wheel: D&D, heavy metal, martial arts, homsexuality, new and different cultures, video games, CLOWNS.

The year that I was born, one person poisoned their own son with cyanide dosed Halloween candy to collect on an insurance policy. His attempted excuse was that Satanists did it and now, 46 years later, after absolutely no known cases anywhere have ever surfaced, we STILL get yearly warnings to look out because some mysterious faceless killer is going to murder your kids with a razor blade hidden in a candy bar. Zero people have ever passed out tampered Halloween candy. Hundreds if not thousands have tampered with their own or their children's Halloween candy in an attempt to cash in on the limelight.

"Real" exorcisms were broadcast on TV, talk show hosts had blockbuster specials where they talked about Satanism and interviewed people who had sex with demons. Books were being sold, movies were being made, hypnotists were discovering that absolutely anyone who walked through the door could be regressed and convinced to remember lurid details of ritualized sexual abuse from a nationwide, underground network of pedophile, demon summoning, devil worshippers.

This was an undercurrent that DOMINATED the 80s in both the US and England. It was a full on witch trial, and dozens of people went to jail and spent decades behind bars till the truth came out. AND it made it that much harder to deal with actual sexual abuse cases in its aftermath.

It waxes and wanes, but it was here during the Red Scare, it was here during the Salem Witch Trials, and it's here today.

It actually has an even older pedigree, and goes hand in hand with the US's Puritan ancestry.The Satanic Panic in the 90s US was a descendant of the various strains of anti-Catholicism that arose in the 18th and 19th century and links back via that to Titus Oates and the "Popish Plot" of Restoration England.

 

[reelo]

"so, ah, anybody familiar with the Cold Meat Industry record label?"

Wasn't "Hexerei im Zwielicht der Finsternis" by AGHAST released on CMI ?

 

[Marc_C]

One of my religious aunt tried to convince my mother D&D was satanic. My mother had seen us play and thought D&D was the best thing that had happened to me. She told her to mind her own business. That was the end of it.

In later years, when I was an adult, I never missed an opportunity to remind the aunt how religious organizations were full pedophiles who mistreated children or used nuns as sexual slaves. She was in league with the Devil himself !

 

[billd91]

My best friend was not allowed to play D&D by his conservative catholic parents, even though their priest said there was nothing inherently bad about the game. But that just meant that we played Star Frontiers, Gamma World, and other games. What I find particularly funny is that I ended my D&D fantasy campaign and instead ran a Warhammer Fantasy RPG. That my friend's parents would let him play WFRPG and not D&D just goes to show how little effort they made into understanding the games. They just heard about the dangers of D&D.

Yeah, that's why, when things like that come up, I advocate people have another RPG as a deflection. If confronted on playing RPGs, trot out the Traveller books. I just wish I had thought of it in middle school when we lost one fellow player to the Satanic Panic-driven parental ban.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I started gaming in '79, and the only place I encountered the concept was in the media. I never met anyone in RL who took it seriously.

 

[nevin]

Theres a lot of psychology studies that have examined people and fear. It's pretty established that the safer we become the more likely we are to let irrational fears be believed. It seems humans are wired to fear things that can hurt us. When we dont have enough real danger around we find something to be afraid of. Its not a religion thing its just that way people are wired. If you look at any 1st world country for the last hundred years there's always a boogeyman to fill that void

 

[Jd Smith1]

Theres a lot of psychology studies that have examined people and fear. It's pretty established that the safer we become the more likely we are to let irrational fears be believed. It seems humans are wired to fear things that can hurt us. When we dont have enough real danger around we find something to be afraid of. Its not a religion thing its just that way people are wired. If you look at any 1st world country for the last hundred years there's always a boogeyman to fill that void

Fear sells media air time. IMO the media exploits that to bolster sagging public interest and declining credibility.