Before and After the Satanic Panic: Conspiracies and Their Consequences for Real Kids

This episode explores moments when adults become completely consumed by the specter (see what we did there?) of children in spiritual danger – and spiritual danger so severe that it threatens their physical well-being. Where do these fears come from? How do our ideas about children’s vulnerabilities feed those fears? How do adults act on their anxieties, and how do kids respond? We consider a range of texts across time that exemplify adults’ fears about children’s potential contact with the darker side of the supernatural – from Henry James’s unsettlingly knowing child protagonist Flora in Turn of the Screw to the images of endangered children circulated by conspiracy-driven organizations such as QAnon – but our conversation centers around a watershed cultural moment when adults' fears about children’s safety reached a fever pitch: the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.  For related materials and a reading list, please visit https://thechildrenstablepodcast.com/.