From the Salem Witch Trials to the Satanic Panic of the 80s to the narratives spread by online conspiracy theorists today, group think has been around for centuries. I’m not sure what drives it—the need to feel a sense of superiority, the desire to be part of a larger and more powerful whole, the strange bonding that comes from sharing a common enemy. It could be all of those things, combined with the simple, sad fact that if enough people repeat a falsehood—no matter how outlandish—it feels like the truth.
I tackle this topic in my new novel, We Are Watching—about a small family in New York’s dHudson Valley who are targeted and terrorized by a violent group of conspiracy theorists. Unbeknownst to bookseller Meg Russo, her daughter Lily and her reclusive musician father Nathan, this cult-like group has been watching them for years, and have developed an entire mythology about them, in which Meg, Lily and Nathan are dangerous and powerful Satanists who must be stopped before they bring about the end of the world. I know, it sounds outlandish. But it felt frighteningly plausible to me, considering the real-life incidents that inspired the book. Here are three that have haunted me for years…
The McMartin Pre-School Trial
I was in high school when the first allegations of “Satanic ritual abuse” were levied against Ray Buckey, his mother Peggy McMartin Buckey, and other staff members at the McMartin pre-school in Manhattan Beach California. By the time the family had been brought to trial and exonerated, I’d graduated from college.
I can still remember the news stories—horrifying tales of sexual abuse and torture of hundreds of children, animal sacrifice and nightmarish ceremonies, most of these acts taking place within a network of tunnels located under the foundation of this family-run daycare. I believed all the stories. Everyone did. Only later did we learn that there were no tunnels under the school, and that the allegations against the teachers were without evidence and that many of the children had denied being abused at first, only to be coaxed into it by police. (Oh, and their testimonies also included depictions of teachers flying through the air on brooms and turning children into mice.) The McMartin family was ultimately exonerated, but only after irrevocable damage to their reputations, livelihoods and emotional well-being.
For more: Try 1993’s The Abuse of Innocence: The McMartin Pre-School Trial by Paul and Shirley Eberle. If you’re looking for something more contextual, author Talia Levin includes a riveting depiction of the case in her 2024 page-turner Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America.
Judas Priest’s “Subliminal Message”
What would the Satanic Panic era be without talk of secret demonic messages burned into rock records? The furor surrounding “subliminal messaging” and “backward masking” reached new and dangerous heights in 1990, when the parents of James Vance sued the band Judas Priest, claiming that subliminal messaging in their song Better By You, Better Than Me had led to their son’s suicide attempt. (He had shot himself after making a drug and alcohol-fueled pact with his friend Raymond Belknap. Belknap had died. Vance suffered permanent disfigurement.) While the band was found innocent, the images of them taking the stand in this spurious case were jaw-dropping, particularly considering the troubled backgrounds of the two young men. “Why would a band tell their fans to kill themselves?” asked a baffled Rob Halford. Reasonable question. But at a time of heavy metal mass-hysteria, it appeared he was shouting into the wind.
For more: Check out the excellent documentary Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance vs. Judas Priest
Pizzagate
It was a shockingly implausible story that started on internet message boards and was later accelerated by Alex Jones’ InfoWars. Before long, tens of thousands of people fully believed that Hilary Clinton and her campaign staff were running a Satanic child sex trafficking ring out of Comet Ping Pong and Pizza—a small, family-run restaurant in Washington, DC. While Clinton and her staff had the benefit of tight security details, Comet owner James Alefantis did not. Before long, Alefantis found himself subject to death threats and near-constant harassment, with things reaching a peak in 2016, when Pizzagate believer Edgar Welch stormed the pizzeria with a loaded AR-15 in an attempt to save the non-existent trafficked children from a non-existent secret room. Fortunately, Welch was arrested before anyone was hurt. And Alefantis, his staff and his business survived. That aside, he may never fully recover from the trauma he suffered at the hands of this angry—and largely unseen—mob.
For More: Try the insightful documentary After Truth: How Ordinary People Are Radicalized by Fake News
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