Talk:Satanic panic

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 12, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Satanic panic article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13: 90 days

view · edit

Frequently asked questions

Many of these questions have been raised in the scientific and popular literature, and are summarized here for ease of reference.

The main points of this FAQ can be summarized as:

Satanic ritual abuse is considered a moral panic by most scholars in psychology and sociology
Only a tiny minority of scholars, publishing in low-impact journals or vanity press support the idea that there was any reality to the SRA moral panic.
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view requires that minority views not be given undue emphasis.
This is the result of long-standing consensus, with many, many discussions covering the same topics and arguments repeatedly without any new information being added or progress being made.
The extensive, repeated abuse editing privileges of sockpuppets by an editor banned for POV-pushing means there is little tolerance for new editors bringing up these same points.

Q1: Why doesn't this article discuss the reality of the SRA allegations?

A1: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that attempts to represent topics in a serious, scholarly manner as illustrated by the use of reliable sources to place due weight on the mainstream scholarly opinion. There are many sources that demonstrate the current opinion of most scholars within the field is that SRA is a prime example of a historical moral panic. Sources explicitly supporting this point include [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29].

Q2: What about the many sources that claim the SRA represented credible evidence of actual child abuse?

A2: Most of the sources that claimed SRA was real were published during the lead-up to, and peak of the moral panic. Even at the peak, the publications were generally in low-impact journals and other fringe publications. As the moral panic peaked, the opinions of the sources began to turn negative. The most recent, most reliable sources are explicit in labelling and discussing this phenomenon a historical example of a moral panic. Recent sources that discuss SRA as a "real" phenomenon are published in low-quality, low-impact publications, often from self-published or pay-to-publish sources, which carry very little weight and are considered an example and demonstration of the low notability of this opinion.

Q3: Doesn't the seriousness of the allegations merit a serious discussion?

A3: Wikipedia is not a soapbox to advocate for a particular point of view. All editors believe that child abuse is a serious crime that deserves serious attention; however many editors and scholars believe that the combination of the bizarreness of the accusations and complete lack of forensic proof means there was never any merit to the satanic and bizarre aspects of the accusations. The willingness to take testimonials of adults and children at face value is seriously believed to have resulted in numerous wrongful convictions.

Past discussions

For further information, see the numerous past discussions on these topics in the archives of Talk:Satanic ritual abuse and related pages:

Discussion of old sources February, 2010
ResearchEditor's topic ban, Arbitration review and repeated, lengthy discussions August, 2008; September, 2008

Skepticism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Psychology Low‑importance

	Psychology portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PsychologyWikipedia:WikiProject PsychologyTemplate:WikiProject Psychologypsychology articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Crime and Criminal Biography Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Alternative views Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative views, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of significant alternative views in every field, from the sciences to the humanities. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion.Alternative viewsWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative viewsTemplate:WikiProject Alternative viewsAlternative views articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Sociology Low‑importance

	Society portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sociology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of sociology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SociologyWikipedia:WikiProject SociologyTemplate:WikiProject Sociologysociology articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Religion: Left Hand Path / New religious movements Low‑importance

	Religion portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is within the scope of Left Hand Path work group, a work group which is currently considered to be inactive.
	This article is supported by New religious movements work group (assessed as Low-importance).

United States: History Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject U.S. history (assessed as Low-importance).

This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed. Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary.

On 1 August 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved to Satanic ritual abuse panic. The result of the discussion was Moved to Satanic panic.

No mention of "the finders" and automatic dismissal of claims

This discussion is rehashing debates that have been brought up and dismissed via reliable sources for years. Nothing else is going to come of it, please review those discussions to see why it's not relevant here. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:20, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The information released in 2019 by the FBI about "the finders" group [30] clearly shows evidence of ritual abuse, CIA involvement or not.

Even the List of satanic ritual abuse allegations page says "Many but not all of those imprisoned have been released," implying that some are still in prison because they're actually guilty of the crimes.

Also, how this article is written seems to imply that not only was there not sufficient evidence of this type of abuse in the 1980's, but that it has never happened, cannot happen and that any possible allegation of this type of abuse is automatically false and logically part of the 80s' "moral panic" or the result of "false memories." JH2903 (talk) 19:43, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Order of the Nine Angles has performed Satanic child abuse, but they are a marginal fringe group among Satanists. Most Satanists don't believe it is wise to break the law. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:47, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

right, but this article says that it doesn't happen at all. that's the problem. JH2903 (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mutatis mutandis, see rule 34. Most Satanists don't think that their purpose in life is to harm other people. But there are disturbed individuals who do think that. The Church of Satan does not teach them to harm other people, nor to break the law. But the problem with that church is that it is a money-making machine (for its leaders). tgeorgescu (talk) 00:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

None of that has anything to do with what you're replying to.

"Most Satanists don't think that their purpose in life is to harm other people." Yep, they leave such sadistic beliefs to the Christians. Dimadick (talk) 15:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It happens. This article insists it doesn't. JH2903 (talk) 13:25, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just use word "theistic" to imply that the satanic panic was indeed devil worship, but then clarify LaVeyan’s and Atheistic’s are not the perpetrators of the Satanic Panic? 2600:8800:3216:AA00:F484:CEEE:6473:58AB (talk) 14:30, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No it argues that all the major and most public cases were. It is about the moral panic. Slatersteven (talk) 13:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

if that was the case then all phrasings of "ritual abuse" wouldn't redirect to this page JH2903 (talk) 15:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Then you need to make the case there, not here. Slatersteven (talk) 10:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

" implying that some are still in prison because they're actually guilty of the crimes." How does the topic of unfairly jailed people imply that they have committed any crimes? They were convenient scapegoats. Dimadick (talk) 15:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go again.

Look, no one is denying that child abuse happens. Sometimes, child abuse happens by members of a religion or a cult. But that's not what this article is about.

This article is about a phenomenon in the 80s-00s where people were making up wild accusations of ritualistic child abuse by nebulous "Satanists," not associated with any organized religion or cult. It was a moral panic, originated by false claims and perpetuated by improper coaching of children by the investigators so that they lied, believing that's what the adults wanted them to say. The entire point of the moral panic was that Satanists are everywhere, hiding in plain sight, in every town across the globe, abusing your children to gain magical powers. Which is patently bonkers.

We keep getting people wandering in here about cases where some group of teens killed another kid and everyone screamed "Satanism!" then demanding we call "Satanic ritual abuse" real. Or, in this case, an actual cult abusing its members (O9A), then conflating that with this broad conspiracy theory.

But the two points people keep missing are thus:

1. This conspiracy theory revolves around the idea that there is a global Satanic conspiracy that is dedicated to abusing children.

2. That the abuse is ritualistic, meaning the abuse serves a function of the religious beliefs by the perpetrators. (See also: Blood libel.)

Even 09A fails the meet the second criteria. Those kids were just plain abused, not for ritual purposes, not to "glorify Satan," or anything else the Satanic Panic claimed. O9A just thinks rape is a good way to undermine society and assert their dominance. It's not ritualistic, it's just cruel for cruelty's sake.

And now, most of the Blood Libel inspired conspiracy theories promoted by the Satanic Panic have morphed into Pizzagate and QAnon. It's the same moral panic, right down to the "global Satanist conspiracy to sexually abuse your children for ritualistic purposes." Just updated for modern politics.

So no, we don't need to alter the article. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

if this was just about a phenomenon in the 80s-00s and not general accusations of ritual abuse then phrasings of ritual abuse, satanic abuse etc wouldn't redirect here implying that any accusation is part of this specific moral panic.

as for your comments about the order of the nine angels, it says very clearly in that page that they're a satanist group so i don't know why you brought it up along with so called "blood libel" and didn't mention the main point i made about the finders. JH2903 (talk) 17:51, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That first point is just not going to fly. Having redirects to help people find the article does not imply every possible accusation is valid.

If you can't follow why I brought up blood libel, then you need to reread that article and then this one. The entire Satanic Panic is a rehash of blood libel in a new form. O9A is a "Satanist" group, and they abuse children. But it's not ritual abuse in a religious context, it's just child abuse, same as what Catholic priests have been found guilty of for decades. The children abused by Catholic priests aren't doing it for the glorification of God, they're just predators using their position of authority to target kids. There's no religious or ritual component to it. That is the key to the Satanic Panic: the idea that these children are abused as part of religious rituals for magical effects. And that's just classic blood libel, the same anti-Semitic accusation that Jews were abducting kids to drink their blood & gain magical powers through their ritual execution/abuse.

As to the Finders, I didn't engage with that topic because our article already handles it. They weren't even prosecuted because there's no actual evidence that would hold up in court. The kids may have been neglected, and the adults were weird, but there was no direct evidence of child abuse, much less ritual child abuse (aka a focal point of this article). The FBI just dumped everything they had on the group in 2019, and people did what they do, finding imagined patterns that fit their preconceived notions.

The problem here is you are conflating "a child was abused in this group" with "evidence the group as a whole abuses kids for religious/ritual effect." The two things are not equivalent. O9A is the closest you can get, and even that doesn't fit what the Satanic Panic claimed was happening. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:23, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

the implication that the rate of sexual abuse by catholic priests is particularly high compared to any other position isn't true

you wouldn't recognise SRA if you saw it in a room covered with inverted pentagrams and people drinking blood JH2903 (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So, yeah, you're just here to POV-push. Take your white knighting elsewhere. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"people drinking blood" Why are you changing the topic to the vampire lifestyle and the subculture's habitual hematophagy?Dimadick (talk) 03:51, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because he's literally repeating anti-Semitic blood libel claims. Never fails with these conspiracists, they always fall back on the classics. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 11:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Remember we are all bound by wp:npa, no matter how dodgy a claim is. Slatersteven (talk) 11:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Bennett Braun has died.

This article might be useful for a few more cites. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:08, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See the article Bennett Braun. — The Anome (talk) 08:12, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What a horrible thing to have happened to an article

Reliable sources state that the whole thing was a hoax. No one was abused, so lamenting about abuse victims is off topic. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:52, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

It's sad that this is called a "panic" when it is pretty much the only kind of therapy that really addresses severe severe torture. People are tortured. Sorry the first therapy happened around stories of Satanism. That's simply what the first victims who talked said.

Honestly I am in groups with other survivors and this particular stuff is totally real, it's pretty obvious that people saying it isn't is just because of a ton of media funding.

But regardless it's the biggest form of torture therapy there is. When you're tortured for years, you can barely think or talk about it, your mind shatters when you try, you enter patterns of flashbacks of torture and when you finally get out you don't remember anything and are in a totally different state of mind. _Anything_ anybody can say to help make torture real, discussed, and treated, is _incredibly_ helpful.

It is _so_ discouraging that this article is labeled a "panic" rather than unbiasedly reflecting two different viewpoints present in our culture. There should be some kind of label or lock placed on all these anti-abuse-victim pages to indicate that only one viewpoint is being fairly represented, another being completely detracted.

Science is littered with researchers and therapists who are working with these people. There is not only one viewpoint here. You are seeing only half of the research, and it is the half that leaves out all the caring, passionate therapists. 131.106.202.98 (talk) 21:16, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As Doug Weller said at [31], We aren't impartial, we are a mainstream encyclopedia. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The title is misleadind

One does not understand exactly what the article is about. About the fear of some people when they hear about satanic rituals or about satanic rituals? The fact that this title is used, satanic panic, gives the impression that people have an irrational and unjustified fear of some things that do not exist and have not happened or can never happen. And precisely fear, irrational fear shows that the facts have no existed and does not exist. The title of the article "satanic panic" is as strange and appropriate for this article as the title "fear of rape" in an article about rape victims. The fact that there are people who are more or less afraid of a certain thing does not prove that the thing does not exist. Moreover, the fact that there is only one person who commits an act, which looks like a satanic ritual does not mean that satanism does not exist, on the contrary. Otherwise, I don't know what your motivation is with this article other than to convince people that these things don't exist when in fact victims existed and still exist. 86.126.133.250 (talk) 11:23, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NO its not, as rape is a real crime, the Satanic panics were not. In fact, they may have actually undermined real child abuse investigations. Slatersteven (talk) 11:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Moral panic. It's a common term for when a group of people get whipped into a frenzy about something that isn't actually a threat. In this case, the moral panic was fear over Satanic cults somehow being widespread in society and harming children. Such a conspiracy did not exist, and was proven to be a hoax. There were no victims, the children were coerced into telling the investigators what they thought the adults wanted to hear.

Also see WP:COMMONNAME. Articles are titled by what they're best known as, even if said title is not as accurate as we'd like. This entire situation is known as the Satanic Panic in literature and reporting, so that's what we go by. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:23, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]