The Devil You Know with Sarah Marshall
In the 1980s and 90s, Satan and his followers were accused of brainwashing children, sacrificing babies, and infiltrating North American society on a massive scale — yet these thousands of alleged Satanists were nowhere to be found. Even so, the narrative became embedded in our cultural memory, warping everything it touched — including the lives of innocent people.. And it never quite died out. In a new 8-part series, Sarah Marshall (You’re Wrong About) explores the tangled web of the Satanic Panic, in a journey that will take you everywhere from Victoria, B.C. to rural Kentucky to San Antonio, Texas. This is a show about the people who experienced the Satanic Panic in real-time — the believers, the skeptics, the bystanders, and the wrongfully-convicted. What was it like to be a psychologist told to look for Satanists in every case; a mother slowly recovering memories of supposed Satanic abuse; a teenager accused of conspiracy to murder? The stories of these eyewitnesses point us toward the real underlying problems — individual and societal — that the Panic was a response to. The fault, as ever, was not with Satanists, but in ourselves.
Episodes
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, socia...
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 p...
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 ca...
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.
In this bonus episode, we look at some impacts of satanic hysteria outside of North America. We hear from Cherine Amr, the founder of the Egyptian metal band Massive Scar Era, who was accused of being possessed by the devil himself in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Producer Mary Steffenhagen speaks with academic Pasqualina Eckerström for a deeper look at heavy metal’s connection with satanism.
The idea of “repressed memories" was having a moment. And for those suffering from intense grief, it provided an explanation for their pain. Delaney, a housewife and mother of two young boys living in Manitoba in the 1980s, starts seeking out counselors and psychiatrists to help her remember what happened in her childhood to explain her deep inner turmoil. Years later, her son Matt describes growing up amidst the Satanic Panic with...
How does a victim of a school shooting become accused of masterminding the whole thing in the name of Satan? When Justin Sledge was 17, a friend of his opened fire at their high school, killing two people and wounding seven others. It was one of the first modern-day school shootings, even before Columbine. Over the next few weeks, their once tight-knit town is embroiled in fear and rumors as people search for a reason for the trage...
Dr. Justin Sledge (who you heard from in Episode 6) is a professor of philosophy and religion. in this bonus episode, we learn how his own experience as a teenager implicated in an alleged satanic plot led to an academic career studying esoterica and the occult.
Though it sounded like a wholesome sitcom premise — four lesbian housemates raise a baby in San Antonio — reality proved anything but. Instead, Liz, Anna, Cassie, and Kristy found themselves caught in a nightmare of a crime drama after being accused of Satanic abuse. They face all the twists and turns of court proceedings, junk science, Satanic allegations, and wrongful convictions — for 22 years.
How did the U.S. legal system allow the Satanic Panic to proliferate as rapidly as it did? In this bonus episode, Sarah chats with journalist Josie Duffy Rice (Justice In America, The Appeal) who has written extensively about prisons, prosecutors and criminal justice.
Now that we know where we’ve been, where are we going? As the Satanic Panic receded from view, we almost forgot it had happened at all – until it came back. How do today’s moral panics compare to the one we just learned about? And what can we learn from the tragedy at Jonestown?
We travel back in time to 1670s Massachusetts to review the famous case of the so-called Satanic possession of 16-year-old Elizabeth Knapp — which took place twenty years before the Salem Witch Trials. In this bonus episode, Sarah and producer Carolyn Kendrick talk to professor Elisabeth Ceppi to find out more about possession in Puritan America.
In this bonus episode, Sarah talks to Professor Bill Ellis who specializes in folklore and urban legends, and they chat about the innate human behaviours that lead us to create panics in the first place.
In this bonus episode, Sarah talks to Yvonne Eadon, a professor at the University of Kentucky who specializes in conspiracy theory and online misinformation, about GAYLOR — the online fan theory that claims Taylor Swift is a closeted queer woman.
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com