My parents threw away all my pokemon and yugioh cards after watching a 60 mins episode on Satanism, spread oil across my forehead and then exorcised the demons out of my body.
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The "Satanic Panic" - did you ever experience this personally?
- Thread starter DeaconKnowledge
- Start date
Yeah, old man here. It was around 1983 and I was just getting into hard rock/metal like AC/DC, Ozzy, etc. A friend of mine invited me to a talk at the local church about "rock'n'roll" so I went. The speaker at the church talked about all the evils of rock and he played Stairway to Heaven backwards on the turntable with all the backwards masking stuff. He played a whole bunch of other albums backwards including "Anthem" on Rush's live album where Geddy supposedly praises Satan. I wish I could remember the others. He was pleading with us to stop listening to this music and was recommending a bunch of terrible Christian rock bands. Anyway instead of scaring the shit out of me I thought it was way cool and became even more of a hardcore metal fan.
My crazy sixth grade teacher would go on rants about how if we used a ouiji board once we would get possessed by the devil, Harry Potter was evil of course (but Lord of the Rings was okay for some reason and she could never explain to me why Gandalf was an okay wizard but Harry wasn't), DnD was of course super evil and if you were the GM you would think you were god and die or something. My dad thought it was hilarious when I'd come home and tell him what the teacher told us at school.
Needless to say I did not stop being a Harry Potter fiend, but she might have had a point about the DnD because I think I might have a tabletop rpg problem.
Needless to say I did not stop being a Harry Potter fiend, but she might have had a point about the DnD because I think I might have a tabletop rpg problem.
I was too young for the original Satanic Panic of the 70s/80s, but remember the revival in the 1990s.
Stuff You Should Know has a great episode about the Satanic Panic:
It's one of the great Mass Hysterias. I thought a lot about mass hysterias and I decided that killer clown phenomenon from 2016 was also a mass hysteria motivated by anxiety over the 2016 election.
Stuff You Should Know has a great episode about the Satanic Panic:
It's one of the great Mass Hysterias. I thought a lot about mass hysterias and I decided that killer clown phenomenon from 2016 was also a mass hysteria motivated by anxiety over the 2016 election.
Oh yeah, for a year when I was living with religious family I had to literally hide the music I would buy, I remember one specific argument about Follow The Leader that I had bought on tape and I got caught with it and lectured and had to throw it out, and at night I went and got it out of the trash.
Do people still pass out those chick tracts? I haven't seen one in the wild for a long ass time. Maybe Satan won?
Grew up in the Midwest and went to a catholic gradeschool but largely never saw any of this. Pokemon cards were banned because teachers thought we were gambling with them. Everyone listened to like AC/DC and Limp Bizkit and no one seemed to care other than "bad language."
Harry Potter was not banned.
Funny enough, it was in like 2016 when a cowworker heard me listening to Lamb of God that I got the "SATANIC!" conversation for the first time. Three years later and he's heard enough to be numb to my musical bullshit.
Edit: I was born in 89 so I guess most of this happened in the late late 90's and early 00's, so maybe it had passed by then.
Harry Potter was not banned.
Funny enough, it was in like 2016 when a cowworker heard me listening to Lamb of God that I got the "SATANIC!" conversation for the first time. Three years later and he's heard enough to be numb to my musical bullshit.
Edit: I was born in 89 so I guess most of this happened in the late late 90's and early 00's, so maybe it had passed by then.
I grew up in the 80s in a bible belt town and nobody really gave a shit outside some over zealous parents but i only ever experienced it through my friends mom who was absolutely delirious. But maybe i only remember through the lenses of how my parents were and they didn't care that i played D&D or listened to rock music.
Are you asking if I've ever smoked weed and listened to rock music while playing D&D?
Because the answer is heck yes.
(I started playing D&D when I found my mom and dad's old stuff in a box. The friends I played with were every-Sunday-at-the-local-church Southern Baptists and no one ever complained that I'm aware of.)
Because the answer is heck yes.
(I started playing D&D when I found my mom and dad's old stuff in a box. The friends I played with were every-Sunday-at-the-local-church Southern Baptists and no one ever complained that I'm aware of.)
My family was never religious even in the few brief years we went to church when I was like 5-6 or so. The closet this ever happened was when my parents didn't want me to watch The Simpsons because it was a "bad influence"
No but I remember they have some kind of coating that doesn't catch fire right away , and he took it as a sign they were from the devil
I grew up in the 80s and went to Catholic school. I remember the church was warning people about D&D. Funny thing is that my schoolmates and I would all get together after school and play.
I didn't experience this personally but my roommate and good friend has. Her mother and father were so stringent and strict that they wouldn't let her watch anything even remotely "non-christian". For example, she was forbidden from playing luigis mansion or watching Casper because it had ghosts in it, which were satanic. Any music that wasn't gospel was satanic. Video games that included any sort of weapon at all were satanic, etc.
i went to a baptist middle school, what do you think?
One time our teacher came in and read us off the names of all the members of Marlyn Manson. Read them off real slowly like they were evil or something. And then said each last name was a serial killer. Mind you this was because myself and some of the other boys loved Marlyn Manson and Metallica and such.
they live in a different reality than the rest of us.
One time our teacher came in and read us off the names of all the members of Marlyn Manson. Read them off real slowly like they were evil or something. And then said each last name was a serial killer. Mind you this was because myself and some of the other boys loved Marlyn Manson and Metallica and such.
they live in a different reality than the rest of us.
When I was in highschool we were only allowed to do sci-fi themed campaigns at sci-fi fantasy club instead of DND because a parent complained.
Mid 90s. School has some weird assembly talking about the dangers of satanic cults. Highlighted how they recruit kids into metal music. I was the only kid in our small town in an Iron Maiden T-shirt/listening to anything not mainstream country music.
I still feel they did this to target me.
I still feel they did this to target me.
Yeah; I went to fundamentalist Catholic schools all my life, and Harry Potter went from a celebrated way to get kids reading that was heavily promoted at our elementary school library to a blacklisted book literally overnight. I'm not sure what happened; one day we were having Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit parties and screening the movies in class, and the next day we would be sent to the principal's office if we talked about it.
There was a girl at school that I read Harry Potter alongside and when I asked her if she'd started Chamber of Secrets yet, she froze up, looked upset, and told me that her mom said it was the work of the devil, so she can't read it, now. I wonder if the parents ended up influencing that decision...
There was a girl at school that I read Harry Potter alongside and when I asked her if she'd started Chamber of Secrets yet, she froze up, looked upset, and told me that her mom said it was the work of the devil, so she can't read it, now. I wonder if the parents ended up influencing that decision...
Not me. But we had a neighbour whose mom was crazy religious, and she had a mild panic over the Sorcery! gamebooks by Steve Jackson. She thought her son was learning witchcraft until the dad stepped in and said "lol they're just games".
I do remember reading some kids' magazine where they peddled this ridiculous propaganda about D&D and fantasy fiction though. Even as a kid I was offended by how much bullshit it was and I couldn't believe there were people who bought into such nonsense (boy did I have a surprise once I learned about American evangelicals once I got on the Internet...).
I do remember reading some kids' magazine where they peddled this ridiculous propaganda about D&D and fantasy fiction though. Even as a kid I was offended by how much bullshit it was and I couldn't believe there were people who bought into such nonsense (boy did I have a surprise once I learned about American evangelicals once I got on the Internet...).
Then why the hell did you write "heck" instead of "hell", you fake Satanist?
There is a really funny old book about masturbation https://unbelievable-facts.com/2016/12/le-livre-sans-titre.html
Gandalf is basically an angel so your teacher had the right intuition about Lord of the Rings. :P
I lived through it and my mom is religious so I went to hardcore church that did record burnings. and so would watch and laugh. It affected some of my cousins because my aunt and uncle and they bought into it. Even their grandkids buy into some of it.
However it didn't affect me because my mom is one of those weird religious people that does believe but thinks her duty is to be Christ like and love everyone and not judge. So she didn't buy in and had a simple rule that if we would let her listen and watch we had nothing to hide and she could judge for herself. At 72 she knows the words to Metallica and listens to Pink Floyd by her own choice.
So while a I watched it affect others and everyone around me would be burning their records me and my brother had an extensive rock/metal cd collection and had comics. We also watched horror movies with my moms permission and were allowed to have D&D group at our house. So it never personally affected my entertainment choices other then being called a satanist by some but I just embraced it because it's all silly to me.
However it didn't affect me because my mom is one of those weird religious people that does believe but thinks her duty is to be Christ like and love everyone and not judge. So she didn't buy in and had a simple rule that if we would let her listen and watch we had nothing to hide and she could judge for herself. At 72 she knows the words to Metallica and listens to Pink Floyd by her own choice.
So while a I watched it affect others and everyone around me would be burning their records me and my brother had an extensive rock/metal cd collection and had comics. We also watched horror movies with my moms permission and were allowed to have D&D group at our house. So it never personally affected my entertainment choices other then being called a satanist by some but I just embraced it because it's all silly to me.
When I was attending a sleepy Southern public college in the early 1980s, under the guise of an informational lecture about sexual imagery in popular music an evangelical group staged a Satanic scare presentation for a packed house of about 400 students. Largely the lecture was about backward masking, and while playing the usual clips from of rockers allegedly praising Satan backwards in their lyrics, they'd flash lurid devil imagery on an overhead projector.
I didn't find any of it remotely convincing, but at the end of the presentation when the lecturer urged students to rise and take Jesus into their hearts and renounce the work of Satan and his worldly minions (a.k.a. Prince, Rick James, the Human League, and Led Zeppelin), the scare tactics were enough to make several of my friends who should've known better join the revival and renounce pop music. (It didn't stick.)
Weeks after the event, a lot of us were still removing the belts from our turntables and playing our LPs in reverse mockingly to find hidden devil messages. Good times.
I didn't find any of it remotely convincing, but at the end of the presentation when the lecturer urged students to rise and take Jesus into their hearts and renounce the work of Satan and his worldly minions (a.k.a. Prince, Rick James, the Human League, and Led Zeppelin), the scare tactics were enough to make several of my friends who should've known better join the revival and renounce pop music. (It didn't stick.)
Weeks after the event, a lot of us were still removing the belts from our turntables and playing our LPs in reverse mockingly to find hidden devil messages. Good times.
My Grandmother wouldn't allow a Dirt Devil hand held vacuum into her house and flipped out when getting one for Christmas. She also believed this Proctor and Gamble myth and would actively avoid their products-
Oh yeah, Devil Dogs and Devil's Food Cake were banned and a lot of my family bought into the idea that Dungeons & Dragons was Satanic.
Oh yeah, Devil Dogs and Devil's Food Cake were banned and a lot of my family bought into the idea that Dungeons & Dragons was Satanic.
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I was playing D&D when Monsters and Mazes came out and everyone's mom had a talk with them to make sure they weren't worshipping the devil or wandering around in caves or doing magic. We told them it was mostly make believe and math.
My parents went through a phase for about 2-3 years that anything with magic was evil. So we hid our games in the bottom of a filing cabinet and played when they weren't home.
Then suddenly they stopped caring about it and everything was fine again.
Then suddenly they stopped caring about it and everything was fine again.
My grandmother told me and my brother that our McFarlane Toys KISS action figures were Satan dolls or something like that. She was never really a big Satanic panic type Christian, but those toys of all things set her off.
My mom, a big KISS fan, got so pissed about the whole ordeal.
My mom, a big KISS fan, got so pissed about the whole ordeal.
lmao
I DON'T WANT TO BE ELFSTAR ANYMORE!
I'm glad my folks were cool with the harmless stuff.
If anything, they were probably glad stuff like D&D and Magic the Gathering was getting me out of the house and socializing more.
My mom once asked about MTG, maybe with a mild amount of concern (this was back in the 90s, during the Unlimited era), but was totally fine when she saw it was just a preened up math game.
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I was raised in a fairly conservative Catholic household in the 80s and 90s, so my parents had a problem with sex, violence, vulgarity, etc. in pop culture—but magic, the occult, and general Satanic stuff was never really a concern. Probably helped that my dad had always loved sci-fi and fantasy fiction.
Where to even start? My aunt bought into the Procter & Gamble thing, going so far as to keep a list of their products on the fridge as a constant reminder never to buy them again.
My brother had some D&D manuals burned - pretty sure they weren't even his, but ones he'd borrowed from friends.
I remember hearing that KISS and ACDC were acronyms for "Knights In Satanic Service" and "Anti-Christ Devil Child", respectively.
And some years later, I even got in trouble for bringing home a novelization of an episode of Charmed from the library once 🙄
My brother had some D&D manuals burned - pretty sure they weren't even his, but ones he'd borrowed from friends.
I remember hearing that KISS and ACDC were acronyms for "Knights In Satanic Service" and "Anti-Christ Devil Child", respectively.
And some years later, I even got in trouble for bringing home a novelization of an episode of Charmed from the library once 🙄
Yes. Back in my youth I was a Christian. (Now Atheist) My youth group leader spent many a Sunday telling us things like AC/DC stood for Anti Christ Devils Children and that D&D was a gateway drug for Satan. He went a long way towards convincing me just how dumb religion is.
I remember people protesting outside of GenCon even into the late 90's about RPGs being satanic. The handed out those weird religious comics like the previous ones posted. Weirdly, very few were actually about RPGs. Most of them were about people having premarital sex and then going to hell. I remember thinking, "Dude, this is a role playing game convention. No one here has had sex."
I was an "edgy" kid in high school, owned a bunch of Marilyn Manson shirts and shit. I got caught with weed and my dad threw away all my band t-shirts. Yeah dad, the SHIRTS made me smoke weed.
My mom didn't like that we played DnD and I've always been in to metal, I dressed the part when I was younger. But no not really.
All of those pseudo documentaries that denounces shows like He-Man and The Care Bears as satanic and blasphemous.
Camp counselor growing up wouldn't let us play Dungeons & Dragons within like 50 feet of her. Zany shit.
Pokemon and MtG were fine but for some reason my folks were completely against Yu-Gi-Oh. Couldn't watch it, couldn't have the cards, couldn't be friends with people who did play. It was weird.
Ended up playing the game waaaaay later and now I'm a Godless heathen so I guess they had a point. ish.
Ended up playing the game waaaaay later and now I'm a Godless heathen so I guess they had a point. ish.
I grew up thinking that Black Sabbath worshipped the devil and their lyrics were facistic and violent. This was even after most of the satanic panic had blown over and was just some kids in early grade school who led me to believe this (not my parents or anything). It wasn't until I actually started listening to metal in college that I realized it was all bullshit and Black Sabbath were always pretty progressive.