Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt

by Debbie Nathan

Communities throughout the United States were convulsed in the 1980s and early 1990s by accusations, often without a shred of serious evidence, that respectable men and women in their midst—many of them trusted preschool teachers—secretly gathered in far reaching conspiracies to rape and terrorize children. In this powerful book, Debbie Nathan and Mike Snedeker examine the forces fueling this blind panic.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, True Crime, Psychology, Sociology, Crime, Religion

388 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Carrie Poppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I put this book down, I said “Damn!” out loud to an empty room.

[Max]

Has that smug “very special nuanced rational centrist” tone throughout; everyone who disagrees with the authors in any way is cast as hysterical to the exact same degree. Weird takes.... Insisting poverty causes sexual abuse?? The vast majority of porn isn’t violent and women like it as much as men do? Child porn is barely a thing at all and isn’t created or distributed within underground networks where significant amounts of money changes hands? The phrase “nonviolent crossgenerational sex”? Bold to insist that child sexual abuse is rare and obviously couldn’t have occurred in any of these situations when the whole book is about health/criminal justice professionals coercing kids into reciting disturbing sexual torture scenarios. Shitty practices in therapy/social work/medicine/law enforcement interrogation were the problem here above all else..... it definitely was not dworkin’s fault........definitely informative though, esp on the point of police/mental health/medical catastrophic misconduct

[Mike Bevel · Rating 4 out of 5]

(In lieu of a traditional review, I'm just going to share an email I sent to a friend who asked, "Mike, are you okay?" Actually, here is literally what she wrote: "Hi Mike—As you may know I can’t deal easily with Facebook but I do want to know what inspired that last posting with the weird sentences about ritual abuse. Huh? What context, what book what point of view? Just like that all the visible full sentences could do was make me extremely angry. PLiz explain…or ampify." The passage she's referencing in her email is this, from Satan's Silence: "Ritual abuse thus helped women disengage from unsatisfactory marriages without feeling guilty about being bad wives or mothers." When I shared it on Facebook, I commented, "Like, what if Munchausen by Proxy, but empowering?")

So -- I found myself DEEPLY interested in the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s, and have read three books about it:

Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt

Remembering Satan

We Believe the Children: The Story of a Moral Panic

The first and third books really tried to get at an understanding of what would cause parents to believe wilder and wilder stories proffered by their children in cases of alleged sexual abuse. One reason that was cited: the kids were pressured into providing evidence that they knew wasn't true, but they knew would make the adult asking the questions happy.

But why were adults so eager to accept that there was a seemingly limitless ring of Satanic cultists abusing children? That's where there still isn't a lot of very satisfying answers. Both books point to women being empowered to enter the workforce again, and how this destabilized the patriarchal concept of what a family should look like. This would have caused a lot of moral anxiety -- "Is it good for women to not be home with the children?" -- and then these cases of day cares abusing children would have fit into this anxiety very well.

(It's akin, I think, to the Invasion Literature that sweeps through England towards the end of the 19th century: English writers imagining an England where England herself is colonized and ruined by outsiders because England had done so much to destabilize much of the world around her.)

Another point the book mentioned -- and this is directly related to the quotation I shared -- is that mothers, more than fathers,were the likely family member to go to therapy sessions and police questionings with their children. Some of this is because women were more likely to be home during the day than men were, so they had the free time. But, especially in, Satan's Silence, this argument is suggested: mothers in families where ritual abuse had been alleged found themselves in a unique position of power: caretaker, advocate, after-the-fact protector. It gives an eldritch, horrifying shape to the day, but a shape nonetheless. And, in a society where divorce was only starting to be the norm, it provided a no-fault avenue of release for women looking to get out of their marriage. That comes out more mercenary in my description than I think is fair. It's not that women were manufacturing claims; but it might explain why they fought so hard for those claims in the face of either impossible or contradictory evidence.

One of the problems I found as a reader of these three books (I ended with Satan's Silence) is that it can start to seem like all the writers are suggesting that no children are ever sexually molested or abused. And I don't think that's ever the intention of these books; but they spend so much time developing systems that undermine the very idea of child sexual abuse.

Somewhere in between these books and the claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse is the truth, I think.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is arguably the definitive work on the "satanic panic" ritual abuse hysteria of the 1980s and the book that finally put this embarrassing era of unreason to rest, it's clear that a more focused and removed look at this phenomenon is needed. Maybe now, 30+ years removed from the McMartin fiasco, is the time for someone to tackle this topic and offer a work that is just as exhaustive but less prone to long digressions into feminist theory and now-dated views of both science and sociology. This is an important period in modern US history--a modern witch hunt worthy of 1690s Salem--and we owe it to ourselves as citizens to remember these times when religious fundamentalism and pseudoscience conspire to undermine rationality to keep it from happening again.

Nathan herself deserves admiration for practicing skepticism and critical thinking at a time when the country had gone mad with moral panic over satanist pedophiles infiltrating the child care industry. Far from an armchair quarterback, Nathan's work in this book stems from her articles written at the height of the panic defending the wrongly accused and questioning the lack of evidence, something even the highly educated at the time were unwilling or unable to do. Nathan's subsequent career has been similarly impressive: refuting the link between pornography and sexual violence and debunking the famous multiple personality disorder case that spawned the book and film Sybil.

Still, the book is neither timeless nor perfect. Some of it is tough to read. The suffering of the unjustly accused who lost their families, freedom and livelihood is harrowing, as I'm sure it is meant to be. At the time of this book's publication, some of these people were still serving lengthy prison sentences based only on the coerced testimony of children. More troubling is a chapter on physical evidence that consists of about twenty pages of description of children's genitalia. I eventually skipped ahead at the fourth mention of "anal winking". The bigger problems, however, are with the book's organization. Much of it is repetitive, belaboring the point of what not to do when interviewing child witnesses. Worst of all are Nathan's long contextual asides into feminist theory. Nathan, a feminist herself, seems to assert that this moral panic was simultaneously a reaction against feminism and a consequence of overreacting feminists. I didn't get it necessarily since it seems more likely that this was the result of Reagan's neoconservatism--a combination of religious fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism--more than anything else.

Overall, it's a flawed but important work, yet it's hard to escape the notion that a better, more exhaustive and less ideological account is waiting to be written. Until then, this is the best place to learn more about what happens when people become so swept up in fear that they ignore reason altogether, a continual danger in cultures all over the world.

[Christopher Hudson Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed, engaging, & tragic. One of my favorite reads of the year, but also one of the most frustrating. It’s amazing how many people across the spectrum (religious conservatives, feminists, social workers, police, etc.) participated in baseless hysteria that ruined countless lives, and how few of faced any form of accountability.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beginning in the early 80's, the US was rocked by several large-scale (and many more smaller-scale) sex abuse scandals. Teachers and aides at preschools and day care centers were being accused of sexually abusing their charges. This alone is frightening enough, but as the cases developed, horrific charges of sadism, Satanism, and ritual abuse and sacrifice emerged. These sparked literal witch hunts, with increasing numbers of community members accused of participation in what was eventually labeled by some as a world-wide conspiracy.

What exactly happened here? How did hundreds of children (some of whom were younger than two) come to make such grotesque accusations, when there appears to have been so little forensic evidence?

Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker do an excellent job of outlining the changes in the way cases of sexual abuse of minors were investigated and prosecuted, beginning in the 1970's. Many of the changes are acknowledged as extremely positive; prior to these reforms of the 70's, cases of sexual abuse, particularly incest, were almost impossible to prosecute -- assuming they made it so far as the courtroom. Unfortunately, many of these reforms were twisted to such an extent that in many cases the new philosophy of "believe children who say they have been sexually abused" became "if we [parents, child advocates, law enforcement:] believe children have been abused, we must get them to admit it." It resulted, in some cases, in investigative techniques that were incredibly traumatic to the children involved, and led to false convictions.

Nathan and Snedeker calmly (occasionally a little bit repetitively) describe how this occurred, the outcomes of the cases, and the ways in which (as of the writing of the book in 1994) child advocates, feminists, and law enforcement officals have changed or not changed their policies to avoid such cases in the future.

Both the sociological and real-life implications of these cases are fascinating and enraging, and this is a very well-thought-out book on the subject.

[Dan Sharber · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book! if you are looking for some sort of lurid account of the ritual sex crimes going on in the 80's this book is not it. the focus here is on the 'witch hunt' aspect of what went on. you do get a ton about some key cases that work as examples referred to throughout the book as well as key figures that played various parts in all this. but what makes this book great is that it is a political history of this phenomenon and as such paints a very engaging picture of a perfect storm of the rise of reaganism and the assault of the gains of the sixties and the interplay of a fracturing feminist movement as well as the rise of conservative, right actors bent on both demonizing public day care as an assault on the nuclear family and keeping women in the home. also the junk scientists who, along with conviction-happy district attorneys, came up with all sort of false claims and methodologies play their part as well. lastly throw in a very strong class component (the 'victims' families were often white upper middle class people with connections and social prestige why the 'perpetrators' were almost always working people) and it all came together to cause and further one of the most improbable and curious criminal justice witch hunts ever. i was an adolescent in the 80's so i remember some of this but overall things were way worse and way more complicated than i thought. this book is very interesting while also chilling and there has really been no accounting of consequences on this period. people are still in jail falsely and kids are still scarred by having been convinced they were severely sexually abused and further, the real work of trying to prevent child abuse has suffered. children will still be victimized until a real solution in the form of anti-poverty efforts and a movement of people fighting for real equality in society and especially within the family.

[Kendall]

This was an exhaustive (and exhaust*ing*) account of how flawed interviewing, moral panic, intellectually bankrupt philosophies on the capabilities of children, and unfounded medical expertise led to one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in the 20th Century. It doesn't speak so much to the Satanic element of ritual abuse allegations; instead, that seems to be more window dressing for the mass psychogenic illness of baseless child abuse trials.

The book is incredibly well-researched and reads like an extended article you'd might find in the New York Times or The Atlantic. I can't recommend it for everyone given the harrowing nature of its subject, but I'm glad I read it.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A POWERFUL CRITIQUE OF ‘SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE” CLAIMS

Authors Debbie Nathan (journalist) and Michael Snedeker (lawyer) wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “Writing this book has been hard for us. There was a time when publicly expressing skepticism about small children being ceremonially raped and tortured by organized groups was, as one journalist put it, practically and indictable stance… Several years later, the national mood has changed. Doubting is easy now and, for many of the people we know---especially lawyers and journalists---even fashionable. Both of us have been lauded for our early skepticism, praised for helping free innocent prisoners, and asked how we were able to refrain clearheaded when so many others didn’t… The legal work and journalism we did before we wrote this book helped overturn convictions in several ritual-abuse cases… We became the confidants of a population who emerged from prisons anguished and mystified about the wreckage made of their lives… For the parents and professionals who have built ritual-abuse cases, the slightest skepticism represents ultimate betrayal, not only of children but of the accusing adults’ very identity as saviors of young victims. In such a polarized atmosphere, to be identified as a doubter is to be excoriated as part of the patriarchal backlash against children’s and women’s attempts to fight sexual violence, and to be banished from the offices, homes, and confidences of the accusers.”

They note that of investigations of reports of abuse by children, “in order not to traumatize the child, police did not interview her. Instead, they talked to her teacher, mother, or another adult who had made the abuse report. Then they treated this secondhand account as though it had come straight from the young accuser. Only later would she be questioned, but at that point, the interviewer usually was a woman social worker instead of a policeman, since it was felt that girls would tell women things they would be ashamed to reveal to a man. So entrenched did this belief become that soon it was common for the whole investigative interview to be conducted by a social worker, with no exposure to proper methods of forensic questioning and no police present to monitor her. This was a dramatic departure from traditional criminological practice, which requires that interviews be done by law-enforcement personnel trained in how to avoid suggestive and leading questions and in the principle that not all accusations are true.” (Pg. 24)

Of a 1983 trial, they recount, “the four child witnesses gave mostly ‘yes’ answers to a flood of leading questions about their parents molesting them, selling them for sex in motels, and abusing them while the children hung from hooks. The prosecution presented nothing to support these claims---no hooks, no pornography, no telltale bank accounts, no receipts, no evidence of any trauma to the children, and no adults who had seen anything suspicious.” (Pg. 64)

Of the McMartin Preschool case, they note, “The McMartin and Buckey property was searched for pornography and other evidence of molestation. Although nothing was found, Ray [Buckey] was arrested. He vehemently denied the charges, and since there was no evidence to hold him, he was released. The police, however, pressed on… they sent a letter to two hundred families whose children currently or previously attended the preschool. The letter said that Ray was being investigated for child molesting, so parents should ‘[p]lease question your child…’” (Pg. 72)

They continue, “Many other children were describing the same horrible things and displaying similar chilling symptoms of psychological disturbance. Yet despite months of talk from dozens of children about rape, sodomy, feces eating, animal killing, and kidnapping, the police could find no evidence of eviscerated children or animals, no slaughtered corpses, no parent who ever noticed a son or daughter missing from school.” (Pg. 86-87) They go on, “Of all the media people who trumpeted these claims, no one asked to see any photographic evidence---and, in fact, none has ever turned up, despite substantial reward offers and international searches by the FBI and Interpol.” (Pg. 88)

They summarize, “the McMartin prosecution raced on… Ira Reiner had… won the DA’s election and dropped charges against five of the women defendants, calling the evidence against them ‘incredibly weak.’ … Ray would languish in jail for five years before being released on $1.5 million bail. [Peggy Buckey and Ray] would finally face a jury in 1987, and their twenty-eight month trial---the longest criminal proceeding in American history---would end in 1990 with acquittals for Peggy and a combination of not-guilty and hung verdicts for Ray. A second trial to resolve the deadlocked counts would also produce a hung jury, and charges were finally dismissed. In the end, with no one convicted and both the prosecution and defendants trying to forget seven years of tumult, quiet would eventually return to the community.” (Pg. 92)

They observe, “the first ritual-abuse cases stemmed from the fantasies of mentally disturbed women, fantasies that were taken literally by investigators primed to believe them. Doris Bell… became a regular attendee at meetings of incest survivors in Oakland, and soon thereafter wrote two (unpublished) manuscripts about how to obtain disclosures of child sex abuse. In these documents, Bell advised that children should be interrogated about molestation even when they do not want to talk about it.” (Pg. 109)

They point out, “Ritual-abuse cases were remarkable for their uniform lack of corroborative evidence. This was not for want of effort; law-enforcement workers went to extraordinary lengths to search for bones, bodies, pornography, burial sites, clothing---anything that would support the prosecution. The most extravagant and determined efforts were made in the McMartin case. Dozens of investigators probed numerous schools and interviewed hundreds of families in the Manhattan Beach area…. Hundreds of … buildings were photographed, and thousands of pornographic movies and photographs seized from other investigations were carefully reviewed… Laboratory tests were conducted on every tangible item at the school in a search for blood, semen, or other incriminating fluids. A team of archaeologists conducted meticulous digs underneath the school building and surrounding grounds, looking for tunnels the children said they had been molested in… Twenty-five thousand dollars was offered, no questions asked, for even one photograph of child pornography taken at the McMartin school… All was for naught… but this failure did little to stem the increasing conviction that ritual-abuse cases were real and widespread.” (Pg. 116)

They explain, “Another technique used in virtually every ritual-abuse case was anatomically detailed dolls, with genitalia, breasts, and public hair…. A study seeking to demonstrate that experienced professionals could accurately assess whether a child has been sexually abused from videotapes of doll play instead showed that not only were the professionals wrong more often than not, but they frequently disagreed with one another about the meaning of what they saw. What does seem clear is that dolls with breasts and genitals encourage some children to play in ways that many adults would consider sexual… such ‘disclosures’ could prove explosive, particularly considering what other research findings show: that dolls do not help small children talk about embarrassing things.” (Pg. 154)

They conclude, “Child protectionists and feminists who refuse to help make these amends will ultimately be remembered as the deluded commanders of a crusade whose enemies were phantoms, but whose casualties were all too real. The past decade’s war against ritual abuse and other imagined sexual offenses has devastated people, including the women and children it was supposed to help. To repair the damage and prevent more of it, we need to exorcise our demons by dealing thoughtfully and publicly with what they stand for. Only then can we hope to break the silence that still belongs to Satan.” (Pg. 253)

This book will be “must reading” for anyone seriously studying the issues related to ‘satanic ritual abuse,’ and similar topics.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A damning statement on America’s criminal justice system and a massive swath of its population!

I read this on the recommendation of the “Satanic Panic” episode of the Behind the Bastards podcast. It’s a very dense and distressing book, full of graphic depictions of outlandish child sex abuse, made possibly even more disturbing by the fact the abuse is seemingly completely made up.

It’s mind-boggling and depressing that so many people’s lives were ruined by such baseless hysteria, while actual abuse was being ignored — and often committed — by the people making the accusations. The whole complicated story feels like a cautionary tale of how good intentions can warp into a full-on national nightmare. A hell of a lot to unpack here. I’m very glad I read this book, but am also relieved to be finished with it.

The subtitle is pretty clear in regards to the book's scope, but I would've loved a bit more writing on the broader culture at the time. It mentions the stigmatization of fringe religious beliefs and heavy metal, but a few pages on other demonized pop culture (such as Dungeons & Dragons) would have been extremely welcomed. Or even some explanation of what members of the Church of Satan actually believe. (They don’t actually worship Satan or even believe he exists, for example. Seems relevant.)

A strong recommendation for anyone who is interested in the subject or in beginning to understand its warped descendant, QAnon. It is a 25+ year old book, though, so there’s likely some out-of-date sociological and scientific understanding. But the authors did their job extremely well. And huge props for commenting on the classism of the whole thing. Fascinating and upsetting stuff. (It does deserve a much better book cover, though.)

[Kerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve started, stopped, & restarted this book a few times. I don’t know why it was so difficult for me to push through because I did find it very interesting especially the beginning as I wrapped my head around the incredibly unfounded hysteria.

[Romany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Watched a bad doco about the Ritual Abuse scare of the 90s which dissolved down into the individual neurosis and dysfunction of a particular family. This book was a good antidote in that respect, though I don't necessarily agree with all the conclusions.

[Daniel DeLappe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book and does a great jobs on the History of the subject of the Satanic panic. As a retired Social Worker reading this book was embarrassing to Social Workers. The nonsense that is believed by people who are educated yet have no ability to see bullshit as it stares them in the face. A lot of people were hurt by this nonsense yet not one person was jailed for their crimes of gullibility and ass stupidity.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Note: The Kindle version of this book has some terrible OCR, maybe track down a hard copy]

For a solid decade, everyone knew that shocking numbers of children were being subjected to the most horrific sexual and physical abuse at the hands of parents, teachers, or caretakers who were satan-worshipping cultists. Children testified to horrors one could scarcely imagine, medical professionals found tell-tale signs of abuse written into their bodies, those accused confessed and were sent to prison for life. But the scope of the problem kept growing. More and more children came forward, and it seemed that Baphomet and Moloch were behind every corner.

Until it was shown that literally none of this happened. That although psychologists were acting in good faith and thought they were recovering memories hidden by trauma, the children were all too eager to say what authority figures wanted to hear because they only received good feedback for confessing abuse, not for telling the truth. That the inconsistency of their testimony was excused because obviously their trauma left them in a broken mental state, and couldn't possibly be an indication that their testimony was false or coerced. That what medical professionals diagnosed as "clear signs of abuse" came from a shockingly unscientific and unsupported list of tests partially drawn from a pseudoscientific 19th-century researcher who wanted a simple test to identify "sodomites" for prosecution. That the accused confessed based on tried-and-true psychological pressure that police used for generations to extract confessions when the physical evidence wasn't quite there (or, in these cases, where the physical evidence didn't exist at all). And through it all, where a culture of horror at the spectacle of child ritual abuse set up a chilling effect where skeptics couldn't speak out.

Even though the abuse didn't actually exist, this book is horrifying throughout, and a good reminder of the limits of forensic evidence and the role that social pressure plays in shaping reality.

[Anthony Defreitas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Children all around the world begin to go to the police with stories of abductions and abuse from satanic cults. Once I started I couldn't put it down!! So informative!! He goes through every individual circumstance that led up to an atrocity that broke up hundreds of families world wide. A modern witch hunt which forced confessions, extremel lono prison sentences and thrived from untrue allegations. He mentions the role of politics, economics, and the media and how it all fueled this conspiracy. Great read for anyone interested in religion, psychology, cults, history, or even sociology!!

[Nicholas Underwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing source for those planning to write about the satanic panic of the 80s, and how elements of both the 2nd wave feminist and conservative religious movements of the decade helped put America down the path of a Salem style witch trial in the last decade of the previous century.

[Frank Kool · Rating 4 out of 5]

”[T]hose who purport to be helping victims speak are actually the ones doing all the talking. The victims, meanwhile, remain virtually mute.”
p. 140

Satan’s Silence just might be the definitive book on a topic that was once on everyone’s mind but has since faded into obscurity. And that might be a dangerous thing, because there are lessons to be learned here that don’t just apply to middle class American families in the eighties.
But those lessons will be learned the hard way, for this is a thoroughly disturbing read. First and foremost because, since this is an impressively well researched book that goes into great detail, it contains many elaborate descriptions of physical and sexual abuse of children. The reading of such harrowing passages is made somewhat easier by the awareness that these are imaginations sprung from minds distorted by paranoia and fear, but gruesome they remain.

As a sample of how bad it can get (left behind a spoiler marker so you can read it as your own risk), here’s a sentence describing a doctor’s examination of an alleged victim that’s going to haunt me for a while: "he testified that when he stroked their anuses with a Q-tip, they gaped open rather than tightening shut. This, Woodling said, was the body’s effort to accommodate to repeated penetration." (This phenomenon, called the ‘anal wink’, was later found to be commonplace during anal examinations, making it a very unreliable sign of sexual abuse).

Disturbing also are the psychological and historical lessons that can be learned from this episode. Because while it is true that the so-called Satanic Panic has come and gone, the societal dynamics that caused it could easily return in some other form, while the psychological dynamics behind them are universal. As the authors point out, it was a combination of shifting political, religious, and social norms and practices that gave rise to a nation-wide belief in an epidemic of organized child abuse. Things like political instability, changing gender norms, or fear of the outsider or of a global catastrophe are as true now as they were forty years ago. In fact, the authors accurately predict that “[expressions of those anxieties] will endure, sans black robes and ritually murdered infants, but with more secular sounding scenarios like incest and sex rings” (p. 246).

The confirmation bias that kept the witch hunt going is of course also not just a product of the times but rather a universal trait found in humans of all cultures. There was diabolically circular reasoning at work wherein everything that was or was not discovered seemed to corroborate the idea that ritual abuse of children was happening on a national or even global scale. A toddler’s testimony being self-contradictory or incoherent was explained away by a lawyer as proof of the damage the abuse did to their psyche. Common preschooler behavior such as bed wetting, nightmares, or fear of monsters suddenly took on a far darker meaning than a mere bump in the road to maturity. Moreover, once a child was suspected of being a victim of abuse, parents or investigators would relentlessly interrogate and pressure them into saying anything that corroborated these assumptions, no matter how often or how long the children denied it. The authors describe an interview with a preschooler during which the investigators asked him 340 leading questions to which the supposed victim responded only with “yes”, “no”, “I don’t know”, or one-word echoes of the last question. Rather than taking these reports at face value, the investigators turned to other means to prove the guilt they had already assumed was true.

There’s a terrifying thought: once a moral panic has gotten hold of a society preschoolers may have a better grasp of reality than adults.

As said, that bizarre cultural phenomenon known as the Satanic Panic is both a relic of the past and a warning to the future. For those interested in learning more about it, this book is an excellent place to start.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended through a book club that I am in. I typically don't read non-fiction, but I think that might be changing.
I was born in the late 80's, and the Satanic Panic was mostly over by the time I understood it. Some stories would creep up and linger from the past in regards to Satanic cults and mutilated cows and whatnot, but I really missed the whole thing. So learning about how all of this came to be was so fascinating.
I appreciate that there is just enough background in the book to before the panic began to set the stage for this era. It almost seems impossible that the perfect storm occured for all of this to happen. Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker do such a good job of explaining a scenario, and giving people's background, and what organizations were involved, and the laws that were in place. They really did an incredible job of telling the whole story.
I'm glad this book was recommended to me, and I would like to read more non-fiction moving forward. This is definately the book you want to read if you are trying to get a great idea of what happened during the Satanic Panic. Five stars!

[Brock Jahnke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult but ultimately illuminating read.

The phenomenon of 80s Satanic Panic ritual abuse allegations is both fascinating and infuriating, being cases so sensationalized and railroaded as to boggle the mind, and thankfully Nathan's clear-eyed, unflinching examination of them manages to navigate these murkiest of waters with ease. By detailing the many failures of individual activists and scores of police, judges, and reporters—as well how mental health, gender roles, socioeconomic factors, cultural differences, swift societal changes, racism, homophobia, and politics on both the local and national level fueled this fervor—the author provides both an elaborate snapshot of a specific moment in history and a possible guide as to how we ought to handle similarly outlandish movements today. None of the accusers in this book necessarily acted maliciously but even the well-meaning among us are able to contribute to unfounded and/or misplaced paranoia better directed at systemic issues of class and power, which Nathan argues superbly. It can be a lot to swallow thanks to the subject matter but it's a bitter pill we'd do well to take all the same.

[Emma Drummond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deals with the Satanic Panic, a period in the 80s and 90s where there was an epidemic of caretakers of children abusing them in bizarre ritual scenarios. This book does a really great job of explaining what happened and the kinds of faulty forensic technology that led to so many false accusations, and led to them seeming credible.
I will say, I don't know if this is true for all of the editions, but I got the book on kindle, and there were a decent number of typos. At first that made me distrustful of the quality of information, but it seems to be well researched and well-reasoned.
Overall, this was a fascinating look at the happenings and causes of a truly bizarre period in recent American history.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched book on the "child abuse by Satanists" panic in the 1980s through the mid 1990s. I found it not to be the easiest read for me because reading the actions of supposedly "professionals" involved in these cases made my blood boil.

My heart goes out to all the innocent lives that were effectively destroyed by people who had agendas. Agendas that got to be so far removed from the welfare of children it would have been laughable had it not actually taken place.

Salem Witch Trails. The 1950s Red-Commie Scare. The Ritual Abuse Scare of the 1980s and 1990s. The modern day "Q". We really don't learn our lessons, do we?

[Conrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read. Comparing the 1980s satanic panic type of child sex abuse cases to the Salem witch trials. How hysteria overcomes a community and things become true no matter how improbable. "Experts" saying the accused denying molestation is proof of guilt, a child denying being molested is proof of molestation and they should be pressed harder to remember what was done to them. Coerced confessions and leading questions to 2-11 year old children led many day care providers to being arrested and convicted of satanic sexual abuse, that none of the children remembered, until hours of interrogation and months of therapy "uncovered" memories.

[Jay Vavra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book is hard to read. Horrible horrible acusations about child abuse, including sexual, that turned out to be very likely false. Many lives ruined. People in prison for 40+ years now. No judge or prosecutor willing to look at it again due to the political falllout of not "being tough on crime" with regards to the type of charges.

That said, it's extremely thoroughly researched and reported. I recommend it if you are wanting to go down the path and learn about it. But it made me angry. And wanting to do something to help the falsely accused.

[Derek Monahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a lot to unpack here, and you might want to read this two or three times to keep track of it all. The Satanic Panic and Satanic Ritual Abuse frequently gets oversimplified as a religious moral panic, but this book shows how a lot of seemingly diametrically opposed groups (such as feminists and the Religious Right) came together in a perfect storm, combined with recent pushes to curb child abuse by a society just starting to emerge from millennia of patriarchy.

[C D Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating

This was an excellent account of the moral panic which gripped the world, but particularly the US, in the 80s and early 90s. The parallels with some of our modern preoccupations are startling. I will be referring to this work many times as a clear exposition of what can happen when critical debate is silenced.

[Chad Schultz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Topics: child abuse, false imprisonment.
Heavy stuff, but this is important. Trump doesn't know what a witch hunt is. This was a witch hunt. How Americans could have believed daycare workers were performing satanic rituals on their children highlights vulnerabilities society still has today. Education matters. So does criminal justice reform.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched and sourced, though dated (1995) and some of the sourced evidence (eg. a study apparently showing high numbers of children making false accusations of sexual abuse) has been debunked. Hopefully there’ll be as well-sourced a reflection on the satanic-abuse moral panic coming out soon with more contemporary supports.

[Sydney Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was FASCINATING. It's definitely a bit dated in some of the information and some of the terminology used is a bit cringe-worthy, but it's an interesting and unbelievable book about how insane people can get over conspiracy.

[Alysha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoever designed this cover did the author dirty, because when I first got it, I thought it'd be a low-budget opinion piece. I wasn't expecting a well-documented, well-sourced, and well-organized dissertation on the Satanic Panic. Highly recommend (though the section on Autism is pretty dated).

[Aleš Jánošík · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very disturbing read, especially with the current #metoo panic.