In this new 8-part series, host Sarah Marshall (You’re Wrong About) takes a closer look at the people who experienced the Satanic Panic in real-time—the believers, the skeptics, the bystanders, and the wrongfully-convicted.

In 1988, a young arts educator drove into a small town in Kentucky with a camera and a directive to teach photography to school kids. But she never got a chance. Instead, a full blown hysteria connecting her presence with other dark rumours swirling around about widespread ritual child sacrifice prompted a mad dash escape for her life. The truth behind the drama? Well, it involves Patrick Swayze and an environment where cops, social workers, teachers, parents and reporters were being primed to see Satanic crime everywhere.

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Michelle Remembers is the 1980 “biographical” book that brought the idea of Satanic cults into the mainstream. In it, Michelle Smith documents years of alleged Satanic ritual abuse and the man who helped her remember it, psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder. We talk to those who thought they knew Michelle and Larry best: their families. They tell us what it was like to witness the birth of the Satanic Panic from the most intimate vantage point — and how it shattered their lives.

Canadian director Sean Horlor’s film, Satan Wants You (2023), is a deep dive into the book "Michelle Remembers.” In this bonus episode, he talks to Sarah about the process of making that film and what it was like growing up in Victoria at its so-called satanic heyday.

Mary de Young had always been interested in deviants and deviance. As a social-psychologist, she studied “behavior that broke the rules,” and whether the worst parts of a person’s behavior were innate, nurtured, or misunderstood. So when news broke in 1983 about a “new” form of child abuse that she had never heard of before, she was — as a researcher — intrigued, and — as a person — horrified. But as she began to investigate the cases, the details didn’t add up.

How did the Satanic Panic take hold? Whitney Phillips, a professor of journalism at the University of Oregon, guides us through the labyrinth of media and motifs that laid the groundwork for the Satanic Panic in politics and pop culture… and laid down the roots of our current day political landscape.