The Satanic Panic

Hannah and Cameron start this episode off with the story of Pati Burgus. Pat went to see a doctor named Bennett Braun after experiencing signs of depression and fatigue after having children. He quickly convinced her that she was part of a violent Croatian bloodline that worshiped the devil. She was suppressing her memories of abuse as a coping mechanism. Pati luckily stopped following Brauns orders and realized that nothing he told her could possibly be true. Crazy right? But even crazier is the fact that he is still peddling these ideas in 2019. How can these ideas of memory regression and false allegations of Satanic Ritual Abuse still be around today? Now what? Where does the psychiatric world stand on False Memories? And what happened to all those gosh danged Satanic Cults?We answer these questions and look to the future on the final episode of The Satanic Panic.

The Satanic Panic reaches its peak in the eighties with the McMartin preschool trials, when a local preschool is accused of ritualistically abusing the children. In 1983, a mother of one of the children attending the preschool accused one of the workers of sexually abusing her son. She claimed that her son told her that ritualistic acts were performed and supernatural events took place. After the allegations spread like wildfire, social workers and therapists used coercive and misguided techniques to further their ideas. This got the ball rolling on one of the longest and most expensive trials in US history at the time. The decade-long trial cost LA a small fortune and dragged on for years, but was there any truth to it? And what became of those accused?

After the Church of Satan formed in 1966, rural America exploded with rumors of sacrifices and aborted fetus, goat children and blood rites. But it wasn’t until Papa Warnke, an ex-High Priest of Satanism, stepped up and confirmed that yes, Satan is living among us, that the Satanic Panic began to solidify.Episode 9 covers the life and rise of the devil's funnyman, Mike Warnke! He was a Christian stand up comedian who made audiences laugh while spreading the word of God. His act consisted of family friendly giggles then the story of past, his life as a high priest of Satan. His claims included war hero turned junkie turned head of a satanic cult. But as his celebrity status increased so did suspicions regarding his past. A Christian magazine journalist uncovered the truth. Join us as we discus how Satan infiltrated rock-n-roll by living through The Beatles album art. Also, corporate america is turned on it's head when a rumor started that claimed the president of Proctor & Gamble gives a large portion of his earnings to the Church of Satan.

On this Episode of The Satanic Panic, Cameron and Hannah discus the book Michelle Remembers by Lawrence Pazder. Michelle Remembers was the book that sparked the uprising of recovered memory and memory regression therapy.Michelle recalls the time in her past when she was ritualistically abused by a satanic cult. These memories and therapy sessions were turned into a best selling book that people devoured. But how much of it was true? We also touch on memory studies by our friend Elizabeth Loftus and explain how our memories can be altered to fit the desires of our therapists. We tend to think of our own minds as steel traps, putting faith in the fact that we know what we know. But with the rise of the False Memory Syndrome, one can’t help but wonder just how malleable our memory is.

Episode 7 covers the case of Jude Mirra who was murdered by his mother. She believed that her and her son were being followed by a satanic cult who were ritually abusing him. She justified his murder with pseudo-scientific Facilitated Communication. The message “he” typed to his mother said “I need a lot of drugs to die peacefully…I wish u do it soon.” He was 8 years old, and autistic. This horrible story shows how the diagnosis of MPD can lead to catastrophic events if used to explain sever mental disorders. Multiple Personality Disorder(MPD) is not as clear cut as popular media would have you believe. In this episode we explore the complicated relationship between MPD and Freudian psychoanalysis, and where the psychiatry world stands on MPD today.