Satanic panic

Type: Concept

As of November 2026, Satanic panic has been mentioned in one podcast episode on Stuff You Should Know (Dec 2025).

The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA), sometimes known as ritual abuse, starting in North America in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient, Michelle Smith, which used the now discredited practice of recovered-memory t