Periodically people seem to need villains to target. A form of hysteria develops from an alleged evil. It may be local or national, even worldwide. Almost unknown to our younger generation, the 1980s will forever be remembered for the "Satanic Panic". The panic started with a book that described Satanic rites that supposedly occurred in Victoria, B.C. The next decade saw accusations that swept the United States and eventually surfaced in many countries. It ended, not with a bang but a whimper after the lives of those accused and others had been ruined. Some of those jailed were later exonerated; others received financial awards for the misery they had endured. Most simply tried to get on with their lives.
"Michelle Remembers" was co-written by a Victoria psychiatrist and his patient. In it, "Michelle" tells of the abuse she said she suffered as a child at the hands of Satanists. In lurid detail she tells of rituals involving sexual abuse of children, often taking place in graveyards at night. Many of these tales were obtained under hypnosis. No proof of these events was ever found. Years later - after involvement in over 1,000 cases - the psychiatrist, now married to "Michelle", stated that the events did not have to be true "as long as Michelle believed them to be true." The book was a best seller.
It was at a time when fundamentalist Christianity was on the rise as was a growing awareness of child abuse generally. Thanks in large measure to the book, "recovered memories" were assumed to be valid and many professionals adopted the viewpoint that "children never lie" about such matters.
In California, the 1983 McMartin preschool case, based on allegations of Satanic rites, was fodder for the media. Coverage was sensational and largely uncritical and negative After seven years and $17 Million, the case ended with no convictions. Over the next years over 100 preschools would confront similar accusations A variant arose in Seattle where a newly hired daycare worker accused a child's parents of abusing their child. The Love case saw the parents convicted and sentenced to long terms in jail. The prosecutors failed to medically test the accusations of penetration; on a trip to her family doctor after the trial concluded, the girl was found to be a virgin and the parents exonerated.
A similar case arose in Martensville, Saskatchewan. Prompted by a complaint that was assigned to an inexperienced investigator, operators of a daycare found themselves accused of heinous crimes. A group calling itself "Believe the Children" formed to urge the prosecutor forward, advocates of the "children don't lie" concept. Finally, the charges were dropped and three of those accused were compensated financially.
Most of the Satanic Panic lies in the past. Over 100 childcare workers faced accusations and twenty or more were convicted. In 1992, a couple running a small day care were charged, convicted, imprisoned, and not released until 2017. Declared innocent after almost two decades in prison, the couple received $3.7 million in compensation from the State.
While law enforcement has changed in respect of such cases, many strongly believe that the evil of Satan walks amongst us. It is part of their religious beliefs. Many sermons are preached against the evil of a very real Satan. Satanic rites are depicted in popular movies and on television causing those without any belief in God to believe in the evil of Satan. I have known people who firmly believe that those movies depict real events. So we remain on the cusp of further accusations while mocking the witch trials of the 1600s.
