The Satanic Panic Is Alive And Well In Utah

The Mormon state takes a deep dive back into one of the more hysterical moral panics of the 1980s.

If you hear about the Satanic Panic now, it tends to be very much as a 1980s phenomenon that is baffling and unthinkable in our modern sophisticated world, like Ra Ra Skirts or Kajagoogoo. There have been books, documentaries and head-scratching articles that look back with a ‘how on earth did anyone believe this?’ level of bafflement to the days, often with a humourous take, as if the Satanic Panic was a curious fad rather than a period of madness that tore families and communities apart and saw people imprisoned through wild claims that beggared belief because they were literally unbelievable – tales of indescribable horror that turned out to be entirely unsubstantiated by evidence. Like the moral panic over Video Nasties, the Satanic Panic seems to most people to be literal mass hysteria, akin to the Salem witch trials and driven by a Christian fear of heavy metal, Dungeons and Dragons and rebellious teens. It’s surely unthinkable that anything like this could happen today.

Except that the Satanic Panic never went away. Sure, it no longer grabs the attention of the press and the broadcasters, who used to report the most outlandish claims with an unquestioning credulity, but it is still out there – perhaps more widespread than ever before, albeit now amongst far-right religious fanatics and conspiracy theorists, for whom it intersects with beliefs in shadowy one-world governments and the desire to undermine or destroy the traditional family unit. The Satanic Panic now includes everything from vaccination to Pizzagate to Lil Nas X’s trainers and  Taylor Swift’s Superbowl show as part of a vast Satanic conspiracy of elites. These are not just the harmless beliefs of religious cranks. In 2020, Wilfred Wong and several co-conspirators were imprisoned after planning to kidnap a child that they believed was the victim of the disproven Hampstead Satanic abuse claims in Britain. In 2016, Edgar Manning entered the restaurant at the centre of the Pizzagate claims and started firing. As the police and courts have failed to convict anyone of Satanic Ritual Abuse over the years and public belief in the whole thing has diminished, so the belief in it has increased amongst those who are convinced that the lack of convictions shows a powerful conspiracy at work. For the true believer, less evidence is more proof.

Now, Utah looks set to be the first US State to pass laws criminalising Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) since the panic fizzled out in the 1990s. Republican state Rep. Ken Ivory is sponsoring a bill that defines SRA thus:

An actor commits ritual abuse of a child if the actor, as part of a ritual, intentionally or knowingly;

Causes a child to participate in or witness:

1. the torture, mutilation, or sacrifice of an animal;
2. the dissection, mutilation, or incineration of a human corpse:
3. the causing of serious bodily injury to an individual;
4. bestiality;
5. sadistic or masochistic activities;
6. the ingestion or external application of an organic substance or material; or
7. an activity that would constitute a criminal offence;

Causes a child to:

1. enter a coffin or open grave containing a human corpse or remains;
2. participate in a mock, unauthorized, or unlawful marriage ceremony as an individual being married to another individual or a fictional representation; or
3. ingest, inject, or otherwise intake a chemical compound, narcotic, drug, hallucinogen, or anaesthetic;

Threatens a child, or the child’s parents, family, pets, or friends with death, serious bodily injury, or other criminal activity; Deprives a child of sleep, food, or water; Binds or confines a child; Or otherwise acts to cause to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any individual.

Well, that’s certainly a dreadful list of activities to happen to anyone, let alone a child. But sensible readers might have a few questions here. One might be why the proposed law only outlaws things like causing a child to participate in, say, bestiality if it takes place during a ritual. It strikes me that things like this ought to be illegal under any circumstances. And in truth, I rather imagine that they are. So why on earth does there need to be a specific law connecting them to Satanic rituals? The idea, of course, is to put the unbelievable on a legal basis – to make it easier to make arrests and go to trial based on claims that might have otherwise been seen as too outlandish to believe. Perhaps the law aims to diminish the need for pesky things like physical evidence in favour of a ‘believe the victim’ mentality where a mere accusation is all the evidence needed.

Among those testifying in what has been described as “an evening of emotional testimony” by NBC News was Kimberli Raya Koen, one of the leading figures in the SRA community. Koen claims that all the listed acts happened to her in acts of SRA that she only remembered when seeing a therapist at the age of 19. Recovered memories are a somewhat controversial thing, to say the least. Notably, she always knew that her father had abused her, hence the therapy; the SRA part only came out with the help of the therapist. I don’t doubt that she believes this to be true but there is plenty of evidence to show that recovered memories are not reliable memories and that many therapists at the height of the Satanic Panic were effectively leading their patients to believe things that might not be true. Koen is 53 now so she would’ve been in therapy during the peak of the panic.

Also pushing the bill are Utah sheriff Mike Smith and Lt. Jason Randall, who have yet to find any evidence for the SRA crimes that they believe are still taking place but who want the law passed so that it gives more credibility to the ‘incredible’ claims – and because it might make people stop laughing at them. “I was attacked, I was ridiculed, I’ve had memes made about me because of it,” said Smith. Yeah… I don’t think that will be stopping somehow. Smith is currently pursuing a case dating back to 1990 that involves accusations against several people including the former Utah prosecuting attorney, based on the unsubstantiated claims of a man currently on the run and facing charges of rape. Two people were arrested in 2022 but the case has been dogged with claims of political motivation and the mishandling of evidence.

Let’s not pretend that there isn’t horrendous child abuse in Utah. Only this month, parenting influencer Ruby Franke was convicted of starving and abusing her children, something that came to light when her 12-year-old son climbed out of a window, duct tape still around his ankle and covered in open wounds, and knocked on a neighbour’s door to ask for food and drink having been locked up and starved as ‘punishment’. These are crimes that tick several of the boxes of the proposed new law, you might notice. Franke wasn’t a Satanist though – she was a Mormon. Similarly, in the UK as I write, the trial is taking place of a woman accused of murdering her three-year-old son who she had beaten with a bamboo cane because the Bible told her that she should chastise him. Add to this the constant stream of stories about paedophile priests in the Catholic church and you have to wonder if Christians might be better off looking a little closer to home when searching for abusers.

DAVID FLINT

Like what we do? Support us and help us do more!