Just In Time For Halloween: ‘Satan Wants You’ Explores Origins Of Satanic Panic That Spread Worldwide – For The Love Of Docs
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In the 1990s, “Satanic Panic” swept North America and other parts of the world, a false belief that Devil worshipers were engaging in ritual abuse of children on a mass scale – drinking their blood, forcing them into prostitution and other lurid crimes.
The hysteria, which saw numerous innocent people accused of committing heinous acts to please their evil master, can be traced back to two people: a Canadian woman named Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist (and future husband), Dr. Larry Pazder. They wrote a 1980 book together, Michelle Remembers, built around therapy sessions in which Smith “recovered memories” of participating in a Satanic cult and becoming “the Devil’s bride.”
The award-winning documentary Satan Wants You, directed by Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams, explores how Smith and Dr. Pazder touched off such a widespread and damaging cultural phenomenon. The film played as part of Deadline’s virtual event series For the Love of Docs.
“Recovered memory therapy” has been discredited. But back in the mid-1970s, when Smith and Dr. Pazder were doing it, the psychiatric technique carried a certain authority.
Content retrieved from: https://deadline.com/video/satanic-panic-documentary-satan-wants-you/.
