Editing Satanic panic (section)

===Conspiracy theories===
In 1984, MacFarlane warned a congressional committee that children were being forced to engage in [[scatological]] behavior and watch bizarre rituals in which animals were being slaughtered.<ref>{{Citation |last=MacFarlane |first=K |title=Child Abuse and Day Care: Joint hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Committee of Ways and Means, and Select committee on Children, Youth, and Families" (testimony by Kee MacFarlane) |date=1984-09-17 |pages=45–46|title-link=Kee MacFarlane |publisher=House of Congress. United States}}</ref> Shortly after, the [[United States Congress]] doubled its budget for child-protection programs. Psychiatrist [[Roland Summit]] delivered conferences in the wake of the McMartin trial and depicted the phenomenon as a [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy]] that involved anyone skeptical of the phenomenon.{{sfn |Nathan |Snedeker |1995 |pp=102–03}} By 1986, social worker Carol Darling argued to a [[grand jury]] that the conspiracy reached the government.{{sfn |Nathan |Snedeker |1995 |pp=102–03}} Her husband Brad Darling gave conference presentations about a Satanic conspiracy of great antiquity which he now believed was permeating American communities.{{sfn |Frankfurter |2006 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/evilincarnaterum00fran/page/60 60–62]}}

In 1985, [[Patricia Pulling]] joined forces with psychiatrist [[Thomas Radecki]], director of the National Coalition on Television Violence, to create B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jenkins |first=Philip |last2=Maier-Katkin |first2=Daniel |date=1992-01-01 |title=Satanism: Myth and reality in a contemporary moral panic |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00190171 |journal=Crime, Law and Social Change |language=en |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=53–75 |doi=10.1007/BF00190171 |issn=1573-0751|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Pulling and B.A.D.D. saw [[role-playing game]]s generally and [[Dungeons & Dragons]] specifically as Satanic cult recruitment tools, inducing youth to suicide, murder, and Satanic ritual abuse.<ref name="web.archive.org">{{Cite journal|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130104131941/http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art9-roleplaying-print.html|url=http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art9-roleplaying-print.html|title=Role-Playing Games and the Christian Right: Community Formation in Response to a Moral Panic|author=Waldron, David|journal=Journal of Religion and Popular Culture|archive-date=January 4, 2013|volume=9|date=Spring 2005|page=3|doi=10.3138/jrpc.9.1.003|hdl=1959.17/44257}}</ref> Other alleged recruitment tools included [[heavy metal music]], educators, child care centers, and television.<ref name="web.archive.org"/> This information was shared at policing and public awareness seminars on crime and the occult, sometimes by active police officers.<ref name="web.archive.org"/> None of these allegations held up in analysis or in court. In fact, analysis of youth suicide over the period in question found that players of role-playing games actually had a much lower rate of suicide than the average.<ref name="web.archive.org"/>

Among the conspiracy theories alleged by the panic were that thousands of people a year were being killed by a network of Satanists, what one psychiatrist writing in a psychiatric journal called “a hidden holocaust”.<ref>R. P. Kluft, “Reflections on Allegations of Ritual Abuse,” Dissociation 3.4 (December 1989), pp. 191–3 (p. 192)</ref><ref name=JPLS2023:sect.6/>

Explanations for how Satanists covered up this slaughter included their infiltrating media and law enforcement, as well as morticians and crematorium operators to make sure 
no bodies were ever found.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jenkins |first=Philip |last2=Maier-Katkin |first2=Daniel |date=1992-01-01 |title=Satanism: Myth and reality in a contemporary moral panic |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00190171 |journal=Crime, Law and Social Change |language=en |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=53–75 |doi=10.1007/BF00190171 |issn=1573-0751|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Other versions claimed that there were no missing persons because Satanists used certain women as breeders, providing Satanists with thousands of babies for human sacrifices.<ref name=JPLS2023:sect.6/>

By the late 1980s, therapists or patients who believed someone had suffered from SRA could suggest solutions that included [[Christian psychology|Christian psychotherapy]], [[exorcism]], and support groups whose members self-identified as "anti-Satanic warriors".{{sfn |Frankfurter |2006 |p=[https://archive.org/details/evilincarnaterum00fran/page/69 69]}} Federal funding was increased for research on child abuse, with large portions of the funding allocated for research on child sexual abuse. Funding was also provided for conferences supporting the idea of SRA, adding a veneer of respectability to the idea as well as offering an opportunity for prosecutors to exchange advice on how to best secure convictions—with tactics including destruction of notes, refusing to tape interviews with children, and destroying or refusing to share evidence with the defense.{{sfn|Nathan|Snedeker|1995}} Had proof been found, SRA would have represented the first occasion where an organized and secret criminal activity had been discovered by mental health professionals.<ref>{{cite book |isbn=978-1-55798-521-7 |editor=DeRivera J |editor2=Sarbin T |title=Believed-In-Imaginings: The Narrative Construction of Reality |publisher=[[American Psychological Association]] |year=1998 |location=Washington, D.C. |page=203 |chapter=Construction of Satanic Ritual Abuse and the Creation of False Memories |last=Victor |first=J}}</ref> In 1987, [[Geraldo Rivera]] produced a national television special on the alleged secret cults, claiming "Estimates are that there are over one million Satanists in [the United States and they are] linked in a highly organized, secretive network."{{sfn |Victor |1993 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/32 32–33]}}<ref name=ocrt/> Tapings of this and similar talk show episodes were subsequently used by [[Fundamentalism|religious fundamentalists]], [[Psychotherapy|psychotherapists]], [[social work]]ers and police to promote the idea that a conspiracy of Satanic cults existed and these cults were committing serious crimes.{{sfn |Victor |1993 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/45 45], [https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/69 69], [https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/166 166], [https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/254 254] & [https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/343 343]}}

In the 1990s, psychologist D. Corydon Hammond publicized a detailed theory of ritual abuse drawn from [[hypnotherapy]] sessions with his patients, alleging they were victims of a worldwide conspiracy of organized, secretive [[Clandestine cell system|clandestine cells]] who used torture, [[Brainwashing|mind control]] and ritual abuse to create [[Dissociative identity disorder|alternate personalities]] that could be "activated" with code words; the victims were allegedly trained as assassins, prostitutes, drug traffickers, and child sex workers (to create [[child pornography]]). Hammond claimed his patients had revealed the conspiracy was masterminded by a Jewish doctor in [[Nazi Germany]], but who now worked for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] with a goal of worldwide domination by a Satanic cult. The cult was allegedly composed of respectable, powerful members of society who used the funds generated to further their agenda. Missing memories among the victims and absence of evidence was cited as evidence of the power and effectiveness of this cult in furthering its agenda. Hammond's claims gained considerable attention, due in part to his prominence in the field of [[hypnosis]] and psychotherapy.{{sfn |McNally |2003 |pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=88Axi0huzYwC&pg=PA235 235–37]}}